Take It All Away
by AGriffinWriter
Summary: Jilted, confused, and heart-sick, Spike never returns to Dru in Brazil, instead deciding to resurrect his original intentions to kill his third Slayer... and preferably Angel too. But when he arrives in Sunnydale once more and finds Buffy in the midst of her Cruciamentum, he can't bring himself to take advantage of her weakened state. Re-write of "Helpless". Eventually Spuffy.
1. Chapter 1: Plaything

Summary: Jilted, confused, and heart-sick, Spike never returns to Dru in South America, instead deciding to resurrect his original intentions to kill his third Slayer... and preferably Angel too. But when he arrives in Sunnydale once more and finds Buffy in the midst of her Cruciamentum, he can't bring himself to take advantage of her weakened state.

_A/N: This chapter is more of a prologue, really; heavily quotes the South-American flashback in "Fool for Love" and a bit from "Lovers Walk". The title of this fic comes from the RED song "Take It All Away", and might be incorporated in the story later._

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Chapter 1: Plaything

**... South America, four months previously...**

"She brought blackness upon us," Drusilla moans, a hand languishing across her brow like a wilting flower.

Spike turns away and lights another cigarette. _Bollocks, goin' through that pack faster than I meant to. Haven't got much of the stuff left_.

Drusilla eyes him petulantly. "You couldn't ever do it."

_That's it. That's bloody it._

Shoving out of his rickety chair, Spike paces in front of the outdoor café, glaring up at the sky as he speaks, too disgusted to look at Drusilla.

"So, Sunnyhell was not our finest hour. And _yes_, I made a deal with the Slayer. But _you_ were shaggin' Angelus _and_ bringin' about an apocalypse to end all life as we know it. So? Every couple's got... their ups and downs... Point bein', we got through all that. It's behind us now... isn't it?"

He's trying. God knows, he's trying harder than any reasonable man should be expected to try... after seeing his black beauty with that... _thing_.

"I hate it here," Dru pouts. "Furry little animals peering at us from out of the trees, and the people taste all funny..."

"Right," he sighs deeply, dropping his rapidly-consumed cigarette to the ground and stamping the butt into powder. "We'll pick up and move again, and we'll keep movin' 'till we've found the perfect spot... and then you can be my queen again, and I'll be your little prince... your William."

Neck tensing with effort, he reaches for her hand, but her fingers slip away from him.

"Princess... just tell me what you want," Spike pleads, at his wits' end.

Drusilla stares into his gemstone eyes, her face more lucid than he's seen it in years, perhaps ever.

"I want the Slayer dead, Spike," is all she says.

Losing control altogether, Spike flips over the chair he'd formerly occupied and sends it spinning in multiple pieces down the dirt lane.

"_You're_ the one who keeps bringin' her up! I haven't said a word about the bloody Slayer since we left California! She's on the other side of the planet, Dru!"

"But you're lying!" Drusilla snarls, also rising from her chair, eyes cold, unforgiving. "I can still see her, floating all around you, laughing! Why don't you push her away?"

"But I _did_, pet," he whispers, lifting his hands helplessly. "I did it for you. You keep punishin' me, carryin' on with creatures like this."

On the other side of the table, a very frightened Chaos demon – all slime and antlers – gestures its cloven hand between the arguing lovers.

"Okay..." the creature petitions, "you guys obviously have a thing going on here..."

Drusilla can't even meet Spike's gaze now. "I have to find my pleasures, Spike. You taste like ashes."

"So this is _my_ fault now?" Spike scoffs, glancing from his sire to the seven-foot monstrosity, the myriad points on its antlers dripping and oozing some foul-smelling molasses-like substance. When he'd seen his beloved snogging the thing, he'd almost welcomed a stake, would have guided it straight to his heart had any being in this God-forsaken jungle tried to attack him. Every movement since then had felt stiff, painful, like his muscles and bones were already turning to dust. Despair fills him, the axis of his world spinning around with no true North anymore, no center of gravity.

The Chaos demon, off Spike's fearsome glower, backs up a step.

"I didn't know she was seeing somebody... I should take off."

"Yeah, why don't you do that?" Spike growls. _Get the hell out of here before I act on the urge to snap your pathetic, gooey neck._

Unbelievable. The brute still has the gumption to blow a kiss towards Drusilla – the motion obscured somewhat by its hoofed hand – before it turns its back on them and walks briskly away.

"You can't blame the girl, Spike," Dru chides. "You're all covered with her. I look at you... all I see is the Slayer."

"Wasn't blamin' no one, 'cept maybe _you_, mackin' on that... that digustin' thing."

All the fight leaking out of him, Spike sits roughly on the edge of the café's patio and rests his head on his knees.

"You can't play any of our games anymore, Spike," mumbles Drusilla, descending back into the nether regions of her labyrinthine mind. "You've forgotten all the rules. All the puppets' strings are cut, and they lay on the floor and don't dance for the little happy children."

"I don't understand," Spike moans into his hands. "I did it for you, luv. For us. All those months I had to sit there in that bleedin' chair and... and listen."

His voice breaks, head pounding with memories so sickening that his hands start to tremble. The repetitive creaking of the bed... Angelus's loud oaths as he bedded her, rough as he always was... Drusilla moaning cheerfully and responsively for her 'Daddy'...

"Don't you love me, Dru?" begs Spike, standing up suddenly. He rushes in front of Drusilla, kneels, and clutches for her hands. Her gaze remains on the treetops surrounding them. "I've forgiven you, baby. I know you couldn't help it, you didn't mean to hurt me. He's your sire. You're bound to him, like I to you... but you love _me_, right, pet? Princess?"

Her lids flutter, but still she does not condescend to look upon him.

"My pretty plaything has run away, off to another dolly-house... and let another little girl pick him up..."

Is that really all he's ever been to her? A plaything? A game? A puppet?

"No, baby, no... I'm yours. I love you. Drusilla! Dammit, why won't you look at me?"

He can't hold back his tears. They stem not from his eyes but from his heart, seemingly gashed open, hacked to bits. Her hands glide out of his once again, and he watches the hem of her yellow dressing gown move further and further away.

"Dru... Dru, please..."

"No more, pretty Willy... run along now and play with your new little girl." A brief chorus of giggles consumes her. "Little Willy can never have his own girl, can he? All his girls belong to another. Second fiddle said to the violin, let me watch you play, please? If I do all my lessons, will you help me do better next time. Not so many blots in my copybook..."

Her voice is fading, her tiny footfalls on the dirt path growing fainter with each step, but Spike remains on the ground beside the table. His legs have shed all their strength. He's half-inclined to just stay here in this prostrate pose until dawn and let the sun put him out of his misery.

Drusilla is truly gone. Her scent in the air is all that lingers, decorating the chair and table and the bits of dirt her feet trod on, the perfume that – until now – had fueled his existence.

"Please..." he murmurs to the ground of the empty clearing. "Please come back to me..."

**... Highway somewhere in Mexico, present...**

"Gahh!"

Headlights careen toward him, and Spike jerks the wheel of the DeSoto until he's safely out of the flow of oncoming traffic.

"Great... live a hundred years... only to die burnin' in a bleedin' car crash," he mutters, pulling over onto the right shoulder, shifting to park, and rubbing his aching forehead.

The memory of his last words with Dru becomes more vivid every time he closes his eyes now, probably because he's well and truly sober for the first time in months. Out of liquor, out of smokes... nothing but a pounding headache to get him all the way back to Where-in-the-Hell, Brazil, find Dru, tire her up, and torture her until she likes him again. Simple-enough plan... so why doesn't he feel like it will do a bloody bit of good? Who knows how many repulsive pick-your-flavor demons she'll have shacked up with by now? All because of the Slayer... because of stupid, prissy Buffy Summers...

Spike shifts around in the driver's seat, trying to find an angle that mollifies his headache in any way, but the throbbing only increases. Was that really all it took to eradicate a hundred-year-long bond, the closest thing to sacred a vampire could experience – the tie between sire and childe? One brief allegiance with the Slayer, and suddenly Dru considered him too tainted to look upon, too fouled to caress...

And seeing _her_ again last week... with _him_, both alive, pretending not only that all his gruesome atrocities against her kith and kin hadn't happened, but also that they weren't making googly eyes at one another every bleedin' second. Spike had seen what Angelus had done to the Watcher – hell, he had stopped _more_ harm from coming to the faithful bloke – but he supposes Buffy's rose-colored glasses wipe all Angelus's stains clean. Poor little girl... she has no idea the heat of the fire she's playing with.

His headache only growing worse, Spike thumps his forehead against the steering wheel.

_Not 'poor girl', you nit_, he derides himself. _Stupid bint of a girl! Walkin' straight into his bloody hands_... _and he'll use you... and laugh as he tears your pretty flesh... and I won't be able to stop him..._

"Oh God... no..."

Spike bolts up, clapping both hands to his head, not to appease the pain in his sinuses, but to try to gouge out the sudden horror.

"Please no..."

He's lost. He's falling for the Slayer.


	2. Chapter 2: Old Habit

_A/N: Thank you everyone who has followed, faved, or reviewed! I'll try to update roughly once a week. This is one of my several pet projects for July 2013 Camp NaNoWriMo._

_Brief quotes from BtVS: "Goodbye Iowa"_

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Chapter 2: Old Habit

Spike's brain seems to be on pause, incapable of any thought except the bare minimum necessary to keep his DeSoto between the while and yellow pavement markings, his hands clenching the steering wheel so tightly that his fingers are even more unnaturally pale than usual and his tendons bulge like cables beneath his skin. Exits whisk past as he plows down the highway in the dead of night, utterly ignoring the speed limit and the honks and obscene gestures of the drivers he cuts off. When the ramp for Sunnydale appears on the right, he swerves across three lanes and barrels up onto the side street, running the first two red lights – and only then does the police car appear, lights blaring behind him, honking for him to pull over.

Rolling his eyes, Spike tears straight through the illuminated 'WELCOME to SUNNYDALE' sign and, with a squeal of brakes, stops the car at last, gently bumping the curb.

"Driver of the black sedan, step out of the vehicle with your hands up!" grinds the megaphone-enhanced voice of the policeman, halting about a dozen yards away from Spike's car, patriotic lights still rotating.

With a churlish huff, Spike pushes open the car door, rises to his feet, and slams it shut, glaring toward the cop car without much interest, his hands definantly on his hips.

"What? This is my spot. I had it reserved," he drawls.

"I said, put your hands up," says the solitary occupant of the police car, significantly less powerfully now that he's emerged from his own auto. He's a balding man in his mid-forties, and rather stout.

_Great. First meal back, and it's gonna taste of cheap doughnuts and lipids_, is all Spike allows himself to think before he shuts his brain on angry autopilot again. _Mustn't think... dangerous idle thoughts, stupid thoughts..._

"Don't feel like it," he sasses, anchoring his hands on his belt. "Who in soddin' hell decided to put the city's meet-an'-greet sign right square in the middle of the bleedin' parkin' lot anyway, eh?! What kind of half-knackered demon designed this soddin' town?"

The policeman's trembling fingers raise a handgun. "Get on your knees and put your hands behind your head! I'm warning you!"

Spike laughs at the sky, a sharp rippling laugh, like lightning.

"Oh, sure. Warn me of what, mate? That you're 'bout to piss your trousers?"

"Get on the GROUND!"

"Guess what, chum, can't scare me with your oh-so-threatenin' lookin' pistol! Just turn around and mind your own –"

_BANG_!

Spike reels, his left arm in nearly as much pain as when he'd woken up on fire three weeks ago.

"Oi!" he shouts at the twitching policeman, whose face is now hazed by smoke. "Bloody hell! You shot me, you bastard!"

And then he pounces, fangs emerging, forehead crinkling, eyes flaring yellow. Leaping over the cop car, he catches the policeman's hand, bends it back until he hears a soft _snap_ and the pistol drops to the pavement with a clatter, and then plunges his teeth into the man's pudgy throat.

The blood is mediocre – all processed sugar and spam and greasy burgers – but it's life, and rich in fear and shock, a slightly tang than makes it barely worth drinking. One hand still clenched around the policeman's broken wrist, Spike shakes the man by the neck as he relentlessly siphons his blood, swallow after swallow. He feels his own shoulder growing stickier as some of the fresh plasma flows to the bullet wound, but the pain lessens with each gulp. In his ear he catches the fluttering gurgle of the man's final breath, then he draws one more mouthful and lets the body flop to the asphalt, ashen and empty. Licking his lips clean, Spike cracks his neck back and forth.

"Oh, and I'll have that as well," he says flippantly to the corpse, ferreting in his shirt pocket and withdrawing a half-full pack of Marlboros, then flitching all the bills from the dead man's wallet. He extracts one cigarette, pulls out his trusty Zippo lighter, holds the flame to the tip, and inhales a welcomed puff of nicotine.

"Home sweet home," he murmurs darkly. "God, I hate this place."

Then, leaving the body and the still-flashing police car behind him, Spike stalks off, his gait panther-like and dominant.

Willy quails visibly when Spike storms into his bar, nearly detaching the front door from its hinges and earning awed stares from numerous patrons. The vampire – face still ridged and demonic – slams a fist down on the counter, then opens it to reveal a crumpled five dollar bill.

"Double shot of O' Neg, 'keep. An' make it the good stuff. I don't want no soddin' orangutan."

"G-g-got ya, friend," Willy blabbers, nodding enthusiastically. He pours the blood from a hefty glass flask and hands it over, and Spike tips it up instantly, eager to rinse his mouth from the doughnuts-and-burgers taste.

"Keep hearing things about you, Spike ol' buddy," Willy shrugs, attempting to hide his jitteriness with a chipper tone. "People say you're in town, then you're not, but now obviously you're back..."

"Remembered somethin' I had to clear up. Unfinished business," Spike mutters into the empty shot glass, trailing a black-tipped fingernail around the rim.

"Also heard..." Willy prattles on, "could be a complete rumor, of course... that you might be having a bit of lady trouble..."

Spike thrusts out a hand, seizes a fistful of Willy's collar, and drags him back half-way across the countertop. Fangs barred, he gives a ruthless, guttural snarl.

"You... shut your face... or I'll do it for you. Got that?"

"Yeah! Yeah, sure! Just put me down! I won't say a word!"

Spike roughly shoves the petite barkeeper back on the opposite side of the counter. "Like you could keep your gob shut for more than three soddin' seconds at a time," he snorts, lighting another cigarette. He scowls at the illuminated sign amidst the glasses, reminded of how disgusted he is that this pathetic ferret shares his human name.

"B-but not a word on your personal life. No sir'ee, none of my business. S-so... word around town is some suits from your home country have brought in Kralik to challenge the Slayer."

The warm blood pumping through Spike's veins turns to ice.

"That right?" he says disinterestedly, looking up at Willy through the vapor of his smoke. "Kralik, eh? That mangy nut-house vamp?"

"Sure as I'm standing here, buddy. They've got him caged up at the Sunnydale Arms, that abandoned boarding house on the edge of town. Waiting for the right time, I expect."

Spike makes a careless noise in the back of his throat. "Eh, the little superpowered bint will off him just like she does with the rest of 'em."

"Well, that's the thing, you see," Willy leans in, whispering. "The other word is... Slayer's off her game. Sick or something."

"Rubbish," Spike dismisses. "Saw her not a month ago. All perky and spoutin' awful puns, as per usual. Nothin' wrong with the tart." _Unless I was right last time... _too_ right... and now the ponce has hurt her again, the brute..._

"You're pro'ly right," concedes Willy, too afraid of enraging the vampire again. "Still... nice thought it must be for you, just _if_ it's true, and the Slayer is weak. Bet a lot of demons in this town would be thrilled."

_And that's where you're wrong, mate_. _Nobody gets to take out the Slayer 'cept me... so if I say she lives to pun another day, she bloody-well better live._

"Gimme another shot," Spike demands, tossing another fiver onto the bar counter. _Time to go visit Angelus_...

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_To be continued..._

_A/N: Please review! This AU will start to mesh with the events of "Helpless" in the next chapter._


	3. Chapter 3: Questioning

_A/N: Thank you everyone who has followed, faved, or reviewed, and incredible thanks if you are one of the readers who voted for me in the recent Sunnydale Memorial Fanfic Awards! I got Runner-Up Best New Author! This is a mainly Buffy POV chapter, slightly filler, to help set the context of when she and Spike will meet and some things that will change before then. I'm shifting the time scale a bit so the major action happens faster. Unfortunately this part's slanted a bit Bangel because that's where Buffy is in canon right now. Worry not, she'll come to her senses eventually. ;)_

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Chapter 3: Questioning

In her bedroom on the second floor of 1630 Revello Drive, Buffy unfolds the crumpled and as-yet unread birthday note from her father, smoothes it out, and places it and the ice show tickets on her dresser. Slipping into a more comfortable slaying outfit, she busies herself with her hairbrush, continuing until her blond locks are nearly straight.

"Stupid quarterly projections," she mutters, dashing a hand roughly under her eyes and smudging away her tears, but when she puts down her brush her hand continues shaking. "God, what's happening to me?"

Chalking it up to disappointment over her absentee dad, Buffy reaches for the letter, deciding to put this sucker to rest once and for all. She slits it open with a fingernail and yanks out the card.

"_Happy Birthday darling daughter_..." she reads in a cavalier tone, eyes skimming the note. "_Eighteen is a special age... hope you and a friend can enjoy the ice show... miss you and sorry I couldn't make it_... yeah, bet you are!" she snarls at the offensive scrap of paper. "Enjoy your weekend with your damn quarterly projections!"

Buffy splits the note into four jagged pieces before hurling them into her waste basket under her desk. She hauls her weapons bag out from beneath her bed, slips a stake into her pants pocket, and is about to climb out the window when she realizes sneaking out on her – for all intents and purposes – _only_ parent, who's already put up with so much, is a pretty rotten thing to do. With a sigh, Buffy grabs her red overcoat out of her closet and heads into the second floor hallway.

"Mom?"

"In here, Buffy," replies Joyce from the master bedroom. Buffy prods the door open to see her mother looking through art magazines spread all over her bed, scoping out trends for her gallery.

"Hey, I'm heading out. Training with Giles and then patrolling." She doesn't dare mention her planned visit to Angel.

Joyce smiles, trying to be understanding. "Guess being the Slayer doesn't take a day off for your birthday, huh?"

"Nope. Evil's still out there doing its evil stuff. But tomorrow night I'm gonna relax a bit, hang with Xander and Willow and Oz at the Bronze, and... then this weekend maybe we could have some Mom-Buffy time, watch girly movies and OD on popcorn and ice cream?"

"I'd love to, sweetie," nods Mrs. Summers. She'll do everything she can to overcome Buffy's disappointment at missing her daddy-daughter ice-show date. Though she would never say it aloud, she's pleased her former husband won't have the chance to take away her daughter this year.

"If, um, if it's okay with you, I'm gonna see if Mr. Giles has any interest in the ice-show-thingy," Buffy shrugs. "Just 'cuz, you know, we already have the tickets."

"That's an excellent idea, honey."

"Okay. Goodnight, Mom."

"Be safe..." Joyce calls as Buffy slips the door shut again.

_Be safe_. _Mom always says that... and I always think for a split-second that she's talking about Angel..._

She remembers the shifty looks they'd exchanged after their wrestling tussle at his mansion the other night, the accidental innuendoes, the way she'd basically run out on him, embarrassed by her own guilty, naughty mind. She knows she shouldn't even be going near him after the disaster that was Christmas, when he'd confessed how madly he desired her in a way they can never again experience. Maybe it was safer to go on continuing to avoid each other... but with that 'safety' came the heartache of being alone.

_But... 'alone' is going to catch up sooner or later_, she realizes morosely. _It's not like there's any way we could have any kind of future together, especially with all the unsolvable sexual tension. Five months until high school graduation... and then what? Big-name school in some other state, if Mom has anything to say about it. And I __know__ I saw that Case Western Reserve University flyer on Giles's desk. Wouldn't that be perfect, a good college in Cleveland, school __and__ slaying... but no Angel..._

When she arrives at the library, Giles is already arranging the rainbow collection of crystals, and Buffy flops into her usual chair at the end of the table.

"My dad bailed on me," she murmurs, working on her plaintive Bambi eyes. "No happy birthday for Buffy."

Giles only glances at her for a moment, so the effect is useless.

"Oh, I'm so terribly sorry," he replies, not to her, but into the box of crystals on the table. "I know how much you were looking forward to the ice show with your father."

Trying to act innocent, Buffy folds her hands in her lap and fidgets in anticipation. Clearly, it'll take more than just pity for the jilted birthday girl to convince him.

"You know, it's not just cartoon characters. They do pieces from operas... and ballets... Brian Boitano, doing _Carmen_, is a life changer," she gushes. "Oh, he doesn't actually play Carmen, but... a lot of sophisticated people go."

Acting strangely preoccupied, Giles lifts out the massive blue mineral from his box.

"I thought we'd start with the Grounding Crystal again."

"It's usually something that _families_ do together," Buffy hints, smiling at her Watcher.

He just scoots the nearly empty box to another part of the table and indicates the blue chuck of quartz.

"Now, look very carefully for the tiny flaw at its core."

"If someone were free, they'd take their daughters... or their student... or their Slayer..."

She eyes him hopefully, but he seems entirely oblivious to her attempted pleading.

"Buffy, I think we should concentrate now. Look for the flaw at its center."

Sighing reluctantly, Buffy turns her eyes on the blue crystal, but the longer she stares at it, trying to find the supposed flaw that Giles insists is there, the more she really couldn't care less. Her mind wanders off into the nether. _Why am I so unimportant to my own dad? Why doesn't Giles get it? Why am I having this weird wooziness?_

Giles's hand suddenly parts the line of vision between her and the aggravating blue stone.

"What?" she asks, afraid she's let her lack of interest in the vibration and meditation crystals show on her face. "Did I zone on you?" His half-hearted smile says she surely did. "Sorry, must be this flu-bug I'm nursing."

"Best take care of that," he advises. "Why don't you..."

"Call it a night. Good idea. See ya."

Brows narrowed, she stands up and shrugs her shoulders uneasily, heading for the door Giles calls out "Good night" just as she departs, bundling herself a little warmer into her red coat.

* * *

Not so far away, a blue-eyed vampire prowls through the dark alleyways of Sunnydale, picking up faint whiffs of Slayer scent leading toward the mansion he knows Angelus occupies. His spine bristles as he draws ever nearer to his grandsire's dwelling.

_What the bloody hell am I gonna say? Shouldn't even __be__ here in this bleedin' awful town... Shouldn't care one quid if the Slayer and my poofter of a grandsire hop back into bed together and raise hell all over again... and I __certainly__ shouldn't be even entertainin' lusty thoughts about the blonde bint myself. No, no, lust for the chance, that's all. Thrill of the hunt, thrill of the kill... bag my third Slayer, that's my only reason for being back in this bloody town..._

His volatile thoughts do nothing to hamper the plodding of his heavy boots down the streets he loathes so much. Finally halting at the front door of the imposing estate house, Spike swiftly pounds his fist thrice, then steps back, licks his lips eagerly, and fixes his face in a sneer. He senses the approach of the older vampire long before the door opens.

"Spike!" Angel gasps.

"Evenin', Gramps."


	4. Chapter 4: Monsters

_A/N: So, to clarify the episode timeline that I've changed slightly, just pretend the note from her dad didn't come until after Buffy had already been "swatted down by some no-neck and rescued by Cordelia", and the gang had done the research that resulted in nothing more helpful than finding a curse on lawyers. That all happened the previous night. That way news that the Slayer was out of sorts already had time to flit around the demon world, except somehow Angel, king of oblivious, hasn't heard about it. Carry on!_

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Chapter 4: Monsters

"Gonna invite me in?" Spike taunts, leering as he leans into the doorframe. "Don't need it, a'course, on account of this not bein' a human's home. Just givin' you the chance to be polite. Gonna come in anyway."

"What the hell are you doing back here?" demands Angel, his shoulders tensing like a bear roused from sleep by some campers intruding into his cave.

"Not very soul-ish of you to leave an ol' chum like me standin' on your doorstep, mate. You... you _are_ still all soul-ish, right? Not gettin' smoochy with your Slayer-bunny?"

Angel growls menacingly, but Spike just chuckles.

"Touched a nerve? She dump you or somethin', on account of you swearin' off the cuddlin'?"

"I'm only going to ask you one more time, Spike. Why are you back in Sunnydale?"

Spike rolls his eyes, scoffing. "Not like you own the bleedin' town, mate. I come an' go as I please."

"Get out."

"Don't reckon I will," jeers the blond.

"Spike, I order you to –"

"Funny thing... I've decided to take this whole Dru-cheatin'-on-me thing in a positive light," Spike interrupts with a snarky grin. "For the first time in my unlife... I'm out from under my dear sire's wing. I'm on my own, self-employed as it were. An'... it's brilliant! No responsibility, no accountin' to anyone for my actions, including _you_, Peaches, so don't even start –"

Angel loses patience and shoves his left hand against Spike's chest, pushing him back from the doorway.

"Get out of here, Spike," he glowers.

"Make me... poofter."

The whispered jibe sets off his grandsire exactly like Spike predicts it will. The brunette vampire's hand shoots forward for his neck, but Spike ducks under Angel's outstretched arm and dodges, slipping inside the foyer of the mansion.

"Kind of you to let me in, mate," he chuckles sarcastically as Angel whips around in astonishment. "What's the matter? Didn't see that comin'? Too fast for you, old man?"

With a feral growl, Angel lunges at Spike, but the smaller, more agile vamp swerves to the side and trips him, sending Angel sprawling across the slick floor.

"Little rusty, aren't you, Gramps? Little stint in hell make your muscles go all spongy?"

"Shut up!"

"Careful now..." Spike teases, side-stepping another charge. This time he jabs his fist into Angel's jaw, landing a second punch to the brunette's ribs.

"Tsk tsk, I'm disappointed, Angel," sniggers Spike as his opponent staggers backward, a hand around his ribcage. "I mean, I could tell a month ago you were off your game... but this is just delicious. Buffy's precious white knight... gettin' himself creamed by the Big Bad."

"You'd never beat me in a fair fight," Angel accuses, dark eyes full of rage and humiliation.

Spike shrugs his shoulders, then pops a quick fist into Angel's cheek.

"Yeah, that's the thing about bein' evil. Don't have to play fair 'nless I feel like it. Which... I don't."

"You're a coward!"

_Pow!_ Spike wallops Angel in the ribs again, and he hits the far wall with an audible "Oof!"

"_I'm_ the coward? Who's skulkin' about in a concrete house gettin' waited on hand-and-foot by the Slayer, who you can't even shack up with, thanks to your shiny lil' soul?"

Spike paces in front of the fireplace, pivoting to continue facing Angel, who pants aggressively, arms around his ribs.

"Buffy doesn't wait on me."

"Sure..." Spike says with narrowed eyes. He dramatically holds a hand to his brow and raises the pitch of his voice, mimicking Buffy. "_Oh! Oh, Angel! You're so dark and mysterious, with your broody brow and your anti-gravity hair_..."

"Shut up, Spike!"

"_Oh_," he mocks, still in an affected tone. "_I wish we could be together, Angel, but I'm a horny teenaged Slayer who needs a good roll-in-the-hay from time to time_..."

Angel charges yet again, but Spike parries his shoulder-heavy punches and sends him flying backwards with an axe kick to the gut. Angel slams into the wall and then the floor, and doesn't rise, just glares up at Spike, wincing.

"Or..." Spike says in his own voice, "Is it _you_ that can't take the heat? Too tempted when you're with her? A little toss of her hair, a little bit of that silky bronze skin exposed... and you snap, the monster comes back out?"

"I love her! I'd never hurt her!"

"No, no, not one bit. Just kill one of her teachers, torture her Watcher. Yeah, never ever..."

"That wasn't me!"

Spike throws back his head and laughs for a moment, knowing if Angel somehow managed to pull himself to his feet that he could respond to another attack in plenty of time.

"That excuse might work on the humans, chum, but I'm one of you. Vampire. Demon desires in a human core. I know what it feels like... the bloodlust, the craving. Powerful, yeah, but not some body-snatcher takin' over you, usin' your body like you'd drive a car. You afraid to sit in the driver's seat, Angelus?"

"Don't call me that!"

"But it's who you _are_, the _real_ you, mate. Before you got all soul-y and self-condemning, there wasn't a limit to the evil you'd dish out. Hell, did things even _I_ thought were too vile for anything that still walked on two legs and spoke like a man, but the point is, you didn't do anything you didn't want to do. No compunction, just a womanizin' wastrel suddenly wieldin' the strength of Hercules, actin' outside of any human law. And now just look at you. Just a big fluffy puppy with bad teeth... what is _this?_"

Completely changing his tone of voice to one of utmost glee, Spike glances down at the floor by the fireplace to spot a thin package wrapped in brown cloth.

"Don't touch that!"

Spike's fingers already slip around the parcel by the time Angel shouts at him. He thumbs loose the knot of string and unwraps what turns out to be a copy of _Sonnets from the Portuguese_, the love sonnets of E. B. Browning.

"Little light reading before beddy-bye?" he sneers, glancing skeptically down at his sire's sire. "Or... present for our dear Buffy?"

"It's her birthday tomorrow," Angel mumbles sheepishly, grimacing as he rolls onto his knees and gingerly sits up. He doesn't catch the '_our' _that slipped unintentionally through Spike's lips. "Wanted... to do something sweet."

"Sure... love poems from a creature who can't love her without losin' his mask and rippin' her head off..."

"You can't possibly understand how I feel for Buffy!"

"Like your insides vanish every time you look at her?" Spike replies solemnly, refolding the cloth around the book. Seeing the collection of poems seems to have unearthed his own long-ignored human origins, the shy fumbling poet always seeking something better. _Something... effulgent_... "Like her smile's your sun, only thing bringin' light and life to you, but deadly all the same? Like... if anythin' happened to her... you couldn't find a stake fast enough? Like you'd beat down the hellions that came to take you away, charge right up to the Pearly Gates, and demand her back?"

Angel's brows narrow, but it's obvious Spike has hit his mark. He's stunned himself as well, confessing aloud the smatterings of idle thoughts that had tormented him all the way back from where he'd swerved his car off the highway after the realization hit him for the first time. His words hang in the air between them like a lit fuse inching closer and closer to a stick of dynamite.

"How...?" Angel breathes.

"It's how Dru makes me feel," Spike quickly mutters, scuffing his steel-toed boots on the floor. "Or... used to, now that I've given her up."

"She never loved _you_," Angel sneers, finding a verbal weapon at last. "She loved _me_, her sire, her creator."

"And don't I know it," snarls Spike, dropping the re-wrapped book back onto the stone seat by the fireplace. "Doesn't matter if she loves you back or not. Doesn't change how much it burns."

Angel's nose suddenly twitches, and he shakily rises to his feel, head turning to face the door.

"She's coming... she said she'd be here after training."

"She comes to you at night, eh?" Spike asks with a skeptical tilt of his brows, trying to recapture his formerly jubilant and snarky attitude. "Sure that's not a recipe for an accidental bit of hanky-panky?"

"Leave, Spike. Now."

Spike rolls his eyes with another chuckle. "Gonna do somethin' _private_?"

"For God's sake, would you just leave us alone for her _birthday_, Spike? If there's any human decency left in you..."

"Don't give me any blather about human decency, Angel," Spike huffs. "I'm not the one who can't act like a half-decent human without two hundred years of remorse on my back."

"Please, Spike."

Spike's blue eyes meet the opaque ones of his former leader, the demon who made him a monster.

"Yeah. I'll go."

Straightening his duster that had gotten slightly off-kilter during their one-sided fight, Spike stomps toward the back door as Angel stands a little straighter and brushes dust from his shoulders.

"You'll hurt her, Angel," the platinum-haired vampire mutters loudly as he reaches the back door. "Even if Angelus doesn't resurface, you're still puttin' her in danger. Sooner or later, one or both of you will realize you can't take the gridlock anymore... and then you're back to the ol' square one: leave each other forever, or give in. But, the way I see it... the monster you'd become isn't that much worse than the monster you are now, leadin' on a girl you can never love completely."

_Like I could love her_.

Turning his back on Angel before he watches his own words sink in, Spike slips out the door and shoves it shut behind him with a groaning of hinges. He sniffs the air, then slowly leans back against the wall of the mansion and closes his eyes, filling his lungs and mind with the Slayer...

* * *

_To be continued..._


	5. Chapter 5: Problems

_A/N: Huge thanks to ObsessedwReading, MarisAres, Shinobinin, Jhiz, Jeremy Shane, CailinRua, and Redglade for reviewing! Round 29 of the Sunnydale Memorials is open for nominations._

* * *

Chapter 5: Problems

In the basement of the dilapidated bed-and-breakfast, the Sunnydale Arms, a scream vicious enough to wake the dead shakes a bleary-eyed young Watcher from his cot. Brow already coated in sweat, Blair shoots a glance at the other English guard, who shakes his head adamantly.

"It's your shift," Hobson mutters, already tugging a threadbare blanket over himself and keeling over on his own lumpy mattress.

Blair complies, closes the door, and hurries down the hallway to the foyer with its bricked-up windows and the rattling sarcophagus-sized crate. Fingers fumbling, he unlatches the sets of locks on the crate and opens the panel, revealing the straight-jacketed vampire.

"Pills!" screams Kralik, bug-eyed and snarling.

"Yes," stutters Blair. He snatches up the empty glass and rushes over to the kitchen sink. "It's coming!" he calls over his shoulder as the vampire continues screaming for his medication. Rushing back over to the captive, Blair sets the glass on the table and places two of the hemoglobin and drug-concentrate pills in the cup of the spoon, then holds it up to the frantic demon's face, keeping his feet as far back as he can.

"Pills!" demands Kralik again, eyes squinted shut.

"Take them. They're right in front of you."

"Where?" The demon sniffs the air frenetically, then prods the end of the spoon with his flicking tongue. "I can't see... can't... can't reach it..."

His own sweat running down and blurring his vision, Blair edges his foot slightly nearer to the crate.

"Open your ey– "

He gags, windpipe crushed in the vampire's inexplicably free hand. Gasping and flailing as the demon lifts him off the ground, Blair drops the spoon and grasps desperately at the bone-white fingers around his throat. The last thing he hears is a comforting, slightly amused voice.

"Shh... Everything's okay now..."

And then fangs sink deep into his neck, draining Blair of his blood and his soul...

* * *

Spike tenses as he hears the front door open, even on the opposite exterior side of the Crawford Street mansion. He remains immobile while Angel's voice welcomes Buffy inside. The door swings shut with an ominous _thud_, and only then does he turn around and angrily kick the wall beside the back door.

_She's inside... she's alone with him... and what if I just provoked the wanker into ballsin' things up? If he hurts the Slayer now it'll be _my_ soddin' fault for eggin' 'im on!_

Dropping into a crouch, he slinks around the side of the building until he finds a trellis that looks strong enough to support his weight. He back up a few paces, then hurls himself at the wall and leaps, catching the grate about seven feet up.

"Oh God!" Spike gasps, suddenly clenching his left arm into his chest as pain floods his nerves. He'd completely forgotten about the policeman's shot to his shoulder, but the effort of repeatedly throwing Angel around the room is now repaying him with interest. The torn muscles that had started to heal – using the lifeblood of the cop and the two shots of blood he'd consumed at Willy's – have split anew, and Spike feels the renewed bleeding into his t-shirt sleeve.

For a few moments, he just leans against the vertical grating and winces, letting his demon face flicker to the surface in the hope that primal strength will fight the agony faster. When the pain subsides to a duller ache, he continues climbing one-handed until he reaches a window that's free of bars or boards.

Teeth still clenched in an effort to bite back the throbbing running up and down his arm, Spike cocks back his leather-clad left elbow and pounds it against the glass, shattering a corner of the pane. Fortunately, the sound is muffled by the heavy brocade curtain on the inside of the window. He kicks in a few larger pieces of glass until he creates a hole large enough to slip through, then he eases himself inside, detangles his legs from the curtain, and creeps forward, probing the air with vampire-heightened senses.

"Thank you. It's beautiful," says Buffy somewhere down in the main room.

"You really like it?" Angel whispers.

Rolling his eyes at the absolutely poncey tone in his grandsire's voice, Spike drops to a crawl as he nears the staircase and peers over the edge of the balcony at the pair by the fireplace.

"Of course I do," Buffy answers, trying for more enthusiasm as she leafs through the book of poems. "It's... sweet and thoughtful and... full of neat words to learn and say like 'wilt' and 'henceforth'..."

"Then why'd you seem more excited last year when you got a severed arm in a box?" asks Angel, sounding slightly wounded.

Spike nearly falls over the railing from surprise._ How come she's not showin' interest in the poofter's dandy present... and what the bloody hell's it have to do with the chunk of the Judge she pilfered from that bookwormish oaf, Dalton? She didn't _really_ fancy that, did she? Think it a gift from yours truly?_

"I'm sorry..." says Buffy in a disheartened voice, setting down the collection of poems. "It's just... suddenly there's this chance that my calling's a wrong number and... it's just freaking me out a little."

"That's understandable," Angel replies in a tone that's surely meant to be comforting but just sounds preoccupied with disappointment at how poorly received his present is.

Buffy shakes her head, taking a few steps away from him. Spike's brows tilt as he watches her – the unease in her gait, the trembling hunch in her shoulders. Gone is the cocky, powerful Slayer, and in her place is a frightened, normal girl. Whatever Willy'd heard about Buffy being out of sorts must certainly be true, but Spike never imagined it to be _this_ severe.

"Angel, what if I _have_ lost my power?"

"You lived a long time without it. You can do it again," her brunette companion shrugs.

Spike grits his teeth again, glaring down at Angel. _The girl's scared witless and all you can say is 'buck up and get used to it'? Think how _you'd_ fare, you sod. Strength, speed, keen senses, all gone with no tellin' why? Bet my duster you wouldn't last a day before snuffin' it._

To Spike's delight, Buffy seems to agree with his silent musings.

"But what if I _can't_?" she demands of Angel, wringing her hands in agitation. "I've seen too much. I know what goes bump in the night. Not being able to fight it... What if I just hide under my bed, all scared and helpless? O-or, what if I just become _pathetic_, hanging out at the Old Slayer's Home, talking peoples' ears off about my glory days? Showing them Mr. Pointy, the stake I had bronzed?"

Spike has to clap a hand over his mouth to stop from laughing aloud, still watching intently as Angel stands and approaches Buffy. She doesn't seem to notice how he's favoring his ribs slightly, or the hints of bruises on his cheek and jaw – too engrossed in her own troubles.

"Buffy, you could never be helpless or boring, even if you tried," says Angel kindly.

Buffy leans against a table, her face suddenly full of shame as tiredness and distress overwhelm her.

"Don't be so sure. Before I was the Slayer, I was... well, I don't want to say _shallow_, but... okay, I'll say shallow. Even _Cordelia_ looked like a classical philosopher next to me. Angel, if I'm not the Slayer, what do I do? What do I have to offer? Why would you like me?"

"I saw you _before_ you became the Slayer," Angel murmurs.

_Broody stalkin' git!_ Spike snarls inside his head, and Buffy squints, taken aback.

"You what?"

"I watched you, and I saw you called," Angel continues, smiling at the memory. "It was a bright afternoon out in front of your school. You walked down the steps an–"

"Wait, wait, wait... _Hemory_? My LA school?" interrupts Buffy, crossing her arms and – for the first time that evening – looking a bit like her typical empowered self.

"Yes..." replies Angel, slowly and guiltily.

"How did you even find out about me, especially _before_ all the vampire deaths and burned-down gyms clued anyone in?"

Pleased to watch his grandsire getting interrogated so uncomfortably, Spike adjusts his eavesdropping position on the balcony, counting on the dark of the upper level to keep his platinum blond hair concealed from the tense ex-lovers.

"Whistler directed me to you," Angel tries to explain. "You know The Powers That Be give him visions. They wanted me to be their champion, so they sent Whistler to me... so that I would go to you, and you would be my savior. They knew I would love you."

"The same Whistler guy who showed up when you were all de-souled and said, 'Oops, sorry I screwed everything up by bringing you and Angel together'?" Buffy demands harshly. "And what do you mean 'they knew you would love me'? Wasn't that the recipe for the soul-vanishing disaster that already put us all through hell, some of us _literally?"_

"Buffy..."

"S-so these... these so-called _Powers_ manipulated my life by sending you into it? _They're_ the reason Jenny Calendar is dead?"

"Buffy, please..."

"I'm not your _savior!_ All I did was make you lose your soul!"

"Buffy, calm down. You're upset because of this little problem with your powers."

She stills instantly, as though his words are a tranquilizer dart.

"_Little problem?"_ she repeats softly, eyes fixed on Angel. "I just realized the _real_ problem here, Angel. I'm weak... and I'm helpless... and I'm alone in an abandoned mansion at night... with a vampire who openly admits he wants me enough that he might not care if it costs him his soul again."

Now it's his turn to step back and freeze in place, like she's slapped him.

_This is better than Passions_, Spike silently chuckles. _Little popcorn an' I could charge an admission fee for this kind of entertainment._

"Buffy..." whispers Angel, "Buffy, that... I would never force myself on you."

"Wouldn't you? I _shared_ that dream with you, Angel. I know what you saw, what you wanted to do. You even _said_ it. You wanted to lose your soul in me and become a monster again."

She paces, momentarily turning her back on Angel but then thinking the better of it and facing him again. Her hands shake visibly, and even in his amusement Spike's muscles coil, ready to spring down the stairs and separate Angel from the girl if he makes any move towards her.

"Buffy, I thought we were past that," the brunette vampire murmurs, forehead creasing with its typical brood lines.

"Yeah, we were past the part where you were gonna commit sun-icide if you didn't get me _in bed_, but aside from that, I'm really not sure _where_ we are."

He winces at her retort, and Buffy picks up her red fleece coat from the couch.

"You know w-w-what, it's l-late," she mutters in a voice as shaky as her hands. "I'm s-sure my mom's worried about m-me, and... I really d-don't think it's good f-for me to be around you r-r-right now."

"You don't trust me?"

Buffy looks up into his eyes... and remembers the murky brown shifting into terrifying gold.

"No. N-not... not right now. I need to think. I need time."

"Buffy, at least let me walk you home."

"No!" she shoots down his offer, shoving her arms into her coat sleeves. "I don't need you. I'm fine."

Before Angel can do anything but call out "Buffy!" one more time, she heads for the front door, lifts the latch, and vanishes into the night. Immediately, Spike slinks back through the deserted second floor of the mansion to the broken window and maneuvers outside through the half-empty pane. One sniff, and he catches the aroma of her personal perfume on the air. Whatever's affecting the girl, it hasn't altered whatever blend of intoxicating pheromones make up her distinct Slayer scent.

Climbing silently down the trellis, Spike hops to the ground, swears once at the pain in his shoulder, and then rockets down Crawford Street in pursuit of his third Slayer.

* * *

_To be continued..._

_A/N: They'll finally come face-to-face at the end of the next chapter. Thanks all for being patient. I promise "Five Words or Less" will get an update soon._


	6. Chapter 6: New Rules

_A/N: Huge thanks to Shinobinin, ViviH88, ObsessedwReading, Jhiz, Jeremy Shane, FanficFemale , and Rachel for reviewing! Sorry for the slow updates this month. No summer vacation for AGriffs. I should be back to my once-a-week-ish schedule from now on, though... mostly. ;) This is a long, exciting chapter! I imagine Kralik to be humming the 'Darth Vader' theme, LOL. _

* * *

Chapter 6: New Rules

"_Hmm-hmm-hm-hmm_... _Hmm-hm-hmm, hmm-hm-hmm..._"

Kralik's low, droning hums rouse Blair from his brief sleep of death. The young Watcher-turned-vampire opens sunken yellow eyes and rises from the floor, taking in his surroundings with awakened acute senses. His gaze finds his sire still bound in the straightjacket inside the coffin-like box, and Kralik licks the last of Blair's human blood from the fingertips of his free hand.

"Ah, you're up," he nods carelessly. "I was afraid I drained you too much. I do that sometimes. Ever have a tune you just can't get outta your head? It just keeps playing over and over and over. Drives me nuts."

Moving mechanically, Blair lifts the emergency ax from the floor and cuts through the thick leather strap binding Kralik's head inside the crate. The mad vampire steps forward and pries the rest of the straightjacket off of his body, stretching and grinning wickedly.

"Ahh. Thank you. That's much better."

Snatching up the pill bottle, he pops half a dozen of the hemoglobin supplements into his mouth and swallows them down with lip-smacking gulps of water.

"It's a game, you know," he shrugs to his newly-risen acolyte. "We're not gonna play by their rules, but... that doesn't mean we're not gonna play."

Finishing off the water, Kralik cracks his neck menacingly and jerks his thumb at the Watcher's sleeping quarters.

"Why don't you call your friend in and... we'll discuss it over dinner?"

* * *

Buffy's eyes don't fill with tears until she's several blocks away from the mansion. _I just broke up with Angel... Did I? I think I did. Didn't even bother to take the present he gave me. Well... fine! I deserve a life with a normal guy who could actually love me. Oh, who am I kidding! Who'd ever want to date She Who Hangs Out a Lot in Cemeteries_?

She hugs her coat tighter around her, cringes as a car's headlights swing in front of her, and then crosses the street, shoulders hunching. Forty feet behind her, Spike quickens his pace as he spies two hefty construction workers idling beside a parked truck directly in Buffy's path. They whistle as she passes, and their eyes lewdly rove her slight frame.

"Hey sweet girl!" the drunker of the two calls out at her back, when she's no more than a yard or two past them. Her feet suddenly freeze in place at the sound of the slurring voice. "How much for a lap dance for me and my buddy?"

Spike snarls just out of earshot, the blood boiling in his veins. His vampire visage shoves aside his handsome features so spontaneously that it seems like the demon within him has sprung free of his body. His legs tense up, resisting the urge to charge at the cat-callers and let his bloodlust run wild, rip them to shreds...

"_Slayer, what're you doin'_?" he whispers to himself, watching anxiously as Buffy starts to turn around to face the two workers. _Nothin' you can do to the tossers in your state, pet. Dammit, if they lay their paws on you, I swear to God..._

Unaware of her defender, Buffy thinks better of making any response to the two thick-set men and just continues walking toward the alley shortcut she usually takes to get back to her house from the Crawford Street mansion.

"_Buffy, let me walk you home_," she mutters in a self-depreciating tone, repeating her earlier refusal of Angel's company. "_No, I don't need you. I'm fine_..."

Spike licks the point of an elongated fang inside his mouth, raring for blood as the workers continue chuckling lecherously at the blonde's retreating back. Once the darkness conceals her, the second worker nudges his buddy.

"Let's get her."

They step away from the pickup, heading after Buffy.

"I'd pause an' reflect a moment if I were you, mate," Spike growls out, his pronounced teeth heightening his Cockney dialect.

The two burly men wheel around, completely ignorant of the vampire's presence only a few swift steps behind them until that moment. With the nearest streetlight at his back, Spike's distorted face is momentarily hidden, and all they can make out is his average height, dark leather coat, and bleached hair.

"Who are you?" the heavier drinker demands, squinting at Spike's silhouette.

Spike chuckles, guttural and threatening. "Mebbe I'm 'er guardian angel. Mebbe I'm your worst nightmare come to life. Mebbe I'm just a bloodsucker wantin' a little midnight snack."

He steps forward into the light of the next street lamp, and both of the large men quail at the sight of him – demonic ridges in his ivory forehead, yellow eyes glinting, massive sharp teeth filling his mouth.

"You... pathetic... wankers, makin' a pass at a poor 'elpless girl like that," he snarls, stalking even closer.

"H-hey, buddy, we d-didn't, I mean we weren't gonna..."

Spike lets out a tiger-like roar, and the first blubbering drunk trips backwards on the curb, falling on his overall-clad buttocks. His coworker grabs a sizable flashlight out of the back of the pickup and holds it out at the vampire like a weapon. Spike just smirks, his usual crooked smile warped into a terrifying grimace.

" 'Fraid of the dark, mate? 'Fraid of creatures like me that go _bump_ in the night?"

Grinning, he lashes out with one quick punch and sends the flashlight flying out into the middle of the street, smashing on impact with the pavement. Before the worker can even cry out, pale hands clamp onto his shoulders and fangs pierce deep in his jugular. Spike spills as much as he can manage, only swallowing a few mouthfuls before letting the bleeding, whimpering man sink to the ground. He kicks the bitten worker, steps over him, and bears down on the one who tripped, the lout who dared to ask the Vampire Slayer for a lap dance.

"I'm gonna kill you," Spike whispers, crimson splatters coating his mouth, chin, and neck. "You threatened my girl... an' now... I'm gonna make you scream as I drain you dry..."

"HELP ME! SOMEBODY PLEASE!"

Spike's head whips up, Buffy's panicked voice cutting through everything else in his brain. Abandoning his cringing prey, he sprints down the alley where she'd disappeared only moments ago, his face shifting back to human form as he rounds the corner.

"HELP ME! PLEASE! SOMEBODY!"

The fear in her voice slices through him like blades of fire. He leaps over a trashcan and between two tightly-spaced parked cars, then races to the end of the building into another alley, blockaded by a ten-foot chain-link fence.

Just as he registers the barricade, a screaming whirl of white and blonde rushes past him and nearly smacks into the fence.

"Slayer!" Spike shouts. "What's after you?!"

Buffy turns back toward him, her mouth agape at the realization of exactly _who_ has her trapped against a wall she's too weak to climb. Their eyes rove each other for a split-second. Spike's expression softens as he takes in the terror in her face, her small cuts and bruises, her pretty pearl-sheen blouse in the absence of her fleece coat. Buffy's gaze is fixated on the blood splotching most of Spike's front.

"Spike?! Oh! Oh my God!"

He grins. "Hello, cutie. Surprised to see me again so soon, I'd wager?"

To his utter astonishment, Buffy's eyes brim over with huge tears as she backs up into the chain-link fence, raising her hands with the palms toward him.

"Please don't kill me! Please! Spike, I don't want to die! Please!"

His smile falters immediately. The overwhelmingly pitiful tone of her fearful voice quells any possible doubts he might have had about her sudden absence of powers. She's as harmless and helpless as any other hundred-pound girl – probably even _more_ so, since she's grown accustomed to her calling-enhanced strength.

"Are you daft? Not gonna kill you, silly bint!" he replies. _Gotta uphold the image, keep her thinkin' I'm still the Big Bad, all tough and crude so she won't know how mad I am for her..._ "What've you done now, Slayer, pissed off a Suvolte or somethin'?"

"Spike, look out! Behind you!"

He spins around with a whirl of leather just in time to see a growling, feral vampire launch himself at Buffy. The girl screams and curls into a ball at the base of the fence, but Spike grabs the shirt collar of the fledge and yanks him backwards before his grasping hands can seize her.

"Back off!" he growls at the unfamiliar vampire, positioning himself between it and the weak Slayer.

His adversary just snarls and snaps its jaws at the both of them, as though it hasn't yet remembered how to communicate through human speech. Its clawing hands slash out, nails gouging Spike's cheek as he holds it at bay.

"Ow! Get off me, you oaf!"

"Spike!" Buffy screams, still cowering behind him. "Spike, the other one!"

At the far end of the alley, an amused-looking vampire in a teal jumpsuit slowly approaches them, humming darkly. A few more steps, and the two vamps will have them cornered, and if they peel him away from Buffy...

Spike kicks out hard, driving the heel of his boot into the shin of the nearer vampire with a resounding _crack!_ It yowls and drops to the ground, clutching its own leg, and Spike lays into its face with a hook and uppercut, punching it another yard or so away before he turns to Buffy.

"Slayer! Arms 'round my neck! Now!"

She stares at him in bewilderment, still shaking and cringing with her back to the fence.

"Gotta scale it!" Spike shouts into her face, shooting a quick glance at the idly humming second vampire, drawing ever nearer. "Only way! C'mon!"

He grabs at her arm, and she shrieks with fear and pain.

"No! Don't hurt me! Spike, please!"

"Take it easy!" he barks, torn between softening his voice to try to alleviate her terror while still pressing the urgency of their nearly-trapped predicament. "I can get us over! Gotta trust me, Slayer! Just lock your wrists 'round my neck, c'mon."

She gives a scared glance at the approaching jumpsuit vampire – _Better the enemy you know..._ – and latches her arms over Spike's shoulders, piggy-back. He winces once when her fingers dig into his bullet injury, but then lunges the remaining two steps toward the chain-link fence and starts clambering up.

"Spike!"

Buffy's scream turns his guts inside-out an instant before he feels her yanked downwards, the feral vampire gripping her ankle, trying to pull her off, her fingers slipping on Spike's blood-soaked skin.

"It's got me!" she cries, clinging to him, her tear-streaked cheek against the back of his neck. "Spike!"

"Hold on!"

Hooking his fingers through bits of the chain-link, he thrusts his boot into the vamp's face with a forceful grunt. Nearly concussed, the monster loses its grasp on Buffy and falls back down to the alley pavement at the feet of the jumpsuit-wearing vamp.

"Hold tight!" Spike orders, nearly reaching the top. "OWW! Sod it!"

A thick coil of barbed wire lines the uppermost edge of the fence, the points piercing and ripping his palms and fingers. He lets out a string of swear words as he pulls himself over the top, Buffy on his back. From there he drops straight to the ground on the other side, glares quickly through the fence at the humming vampire, and tugs on Buffy's arms.

"Let go now, pet! C'mon, gotta run!"

"Can't," she whimpers, and all of a sudden she collapses in a heap on the sidewalk. On the opposite side of the fence, the two vampires grin, and the one who'd grabbed her ankle rises from the pavement and begins to climb.

"Slayer!" gasps Spike. "Buffy, get up! Dammit, Buffy!"

She's gone into shock, her entire body twitching and unresponsive. Ignoring the stabbing ache in his shoulder, Spike winds one of his arms around her shoulders, threads the other under her knees, and heaves her up, hefting her against his chest.

"I gotcha, luv, easy does it," he grunts out, his cut-up hands spreading crimson stains on her white shirt. "Got a hidin' spot in mind."

He breaks into a sprint, trying to carry her as steadily as possible, and runs with her down another abandoned alley. Behind them, the humming ceases, and the savage shell that was Blair drops to the ground and stares at his sire for instructions.

"Interesting," Kralik whispers, watching the Slayer of Slayers and the tiny girl in his arms disappear around the next street corner. "How very... interesting..."

* * *

_To be continued..._

_Author's note: I know in the episode Giles says the effects of the drugs will only last a few days. Depending on how I organize my ideas, Buffy may remain temporarily powerless for a bit longer than that. The wonderful power of fanfiction. ;) Oh, and be warned... I'm tempted to cause very cruel and painful things to happen to my least favorite Buffyverse character, who enters the story in the next chapter. Please review!_


	7. Chapter 7: Clinging

_A/N: Thank you randyzoopurple, ViviH88, Jeremy Shane, Jhiz, ObsessedwReading, Sara, and Britany for reviewing! And this character may not be my __ultimate __least favorite, now that I'm re-watching Season 7 again. I think Warren Mears may take the cake on that one, but this character is pretty close – all self-important and misogynistic and... well, I'll just let you read._

_I thought I was going to be able to post this last Sunday... but my computer stopped working without warning. Turns out my motherboard had fried, and I had to get a new laptop. Thankfully, I was able to recover the contents of my hard-drive, but learn vicariously: BACK UP YOUR DATA! Don't learn the hard way! (clambers down off my soapbox now)_

_Lyrics from "Take It All Away", by RED. The lyrics by themselves don't completely portray the power of this song, so I suggest you youtube it and listen. It has a very suspenseful, prey/predator mood._

_Flashbacks/memories are in italics and past tense._

* * *

Chapter 7: Clinging

"Hobson? Blair?"

Quentin Travers eases open the door of the boardinghouse and enters the anteroom, brooding over his recent conversation with the current Slayer's Watcher. The nerve of the man! The laughable notion that bookish, squeamish Rupert Giles would know better than the Director of the Watcher's Council, daring to suggest that the time-honored rite of the Cruciamentum did not apply to _his_ Slayer, than millennia of tradition could be ignored...

_"You're having doubts," he deduced from the sullen look on the middle-aged Watcher's face. Travers took a sip of tea and continued when Giles gave no reply. "Cruciamentum is not easy... for Slayer or Watcher, But it's been done this way for a dozen centuries, whenever a Slayer turns eighteen."_

_"It's an archaic exercise in cruelty," Rupert muttered bitterly. "To lock her in this... tomb... weakened, defenseless. And to unleash _that _on her."_

_Both Watcher's heads turned almost reflexively toward the crate in the corner, Travers idly, Giles sickened by thoughts of the creature within._

_"If any one of the Council still had actual contact with a Slayer, they would see," he continued, his tea untouched in his hands. "But _I'm _the one in the thick of it."_

_"Which is why you're not qualified to make this decision," Quentin countered, unperturbed. "You're too close."_

_"That's not true."_

_"A Slayer is not just physical prowess. She must have cunning, imagination, a confidence derived from self-reliance. And believe me, once this is all over, your Buffy will be stronger for it."_

_His only split-second hesitation in his entire blasé answer was in calling the Slayer 'your Buffy', a mild concession to appease the anxious younger man, allowing Giles to go on thinking he had some exclusive close connection to the Chosen One. The Slayer was not 'his', she was the Council's, a tool in the never-ending struggle against the primordial forces of evil._

_"Or she'll be dead for it," murmured Giles, meeting the gaze of the Director with something deep in his eyes, a feeling beyond fear. Fatherly love, that's what he felt for the girl._

Increasingly galled as he remembers the details of their discussion, Quentin crosses the parlor of the Sunnydale Arms, his greatest concern at the moment the paperwork he'll have to file to have Giles dismissed as Buffy Summers' Watcher, and then to replace him with someone who will never sway from the Council's orders. Perhaps that enthusiastic lad of Roger's... yes, Wesley... Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, obsessed with answering the call of his superiors, a pleasant boy... but a sycophant, forever unable to meet his father's – and maybe his own – expectations. Yes, Wesley will do.

"Hobson?" Travers repeats, brusque and unfeeling. "Blair?"

He begins to climb the stairs, certain that he'll find both of the shiftless lads slumbering in their quarters. His hand trails along the banister... and suddenly encounters something wet and tacky. On the landing, Quentin lifts his fingers from the railing, turns over his palm, and freezes in place, transfixed by the sight of the fresh blood coating his skin.

The eerie silence finally draws his attention. Glancing quickly down into the sitting room, he stares through the darkness at the vampire's crate – the open padlocks and broken straps, the straightjacket lying on the floor before it.

"Blair! Hobson!" Travers shouts, whipping a cloth out of the pocket of his tweed jacket and swiping at his hand to clear the surface of the gruesome red. He continues up the stairs, his forehead more clammy than he would ever have admitted.

Reaching the bedroom that served as the apprentice Watchers' quarters, he rapidly turns the knob and gropes the wall for the light switch. He finally finds the switch, and the room is flooded with a yellow glow that is instantly stained red. No amount of cold logic or composure could have prepared the Council Director for the sight before him, the grotesquely mauled remains of Hobson, blood splashes coating the walls from floor to ceiling.

Travers gasps and gags, holding his handkerchief to his mouth as he backs away from the room and flees back toward the stairs.

"Hey now, don't go..."

A smug, gravely voice intercepts him, and Quentin stops on the landing and lowers the cloth from his face as his eyes meet the golden ones of Zachary Kralik.

"Not so brave without your peons, Director Travers," says the vampire. He grazes one hand along the banister and then licks the blood from his fingertips.

"Where's Blair?" demands Quentin, impressing himself with the steadiness of his own voice.

"He's mine now," Kralik replies lazily. The young Watcher appears behind Kralik's shoulder, his face the gruesome grin of a demon, growling at his former employer with no sign of recognition.

"My god..." Travers swallows hard. "This changes nothing. The Slayer will perform her duty."

"Ah, yes, the Slayer." Kralik slowly licks another bloodied finger. "The Chosen One... chosen to die. Didn't even have to dirty my hands with her, though I would have _loved_ to get a taste of that blood. Pretty little thing smelled so good, but _he_ got to her."

"H... he?" stammers Travers. "Are you insinuating someone other than yourself has–?"

"Such a long word. 'Insinuating'." Kralick mounts the first step and draws nearer to the unarmed Council Director, his feral and grinning fledge right behind him. "I'll break it down for you, friend. Heard of William the Bloody? Well... I'd say right about now, he's fangs-deep in your helpless little Slayer."

His mouth curves licentiously. "Maybe balls-deep in her, too. I know I would be, if I was him. Nice thought... pretty little girl all dressed in white, all her strength stripped away, unable to fight back... unable to do anything but scream. Like you're about to."

Quentin feels the wall behind his back as the two vampires approach, their eyes full of hunger and cruelty. If he spares any thoughts for Buffy Summers as the murderous monsters advance on him, it's only a brief consideration of how she's inconvenienced whoever will succeed him.

_Damn. Someone in the Council will have a dreadful lot of paperwork for this..._

* * *

_You've stripped me down; the layers fall like rain._

_It's over now, just innocence and instinct still remain._

_You watched me while I slowly disappeared._

_I reached for you to save me; you were frozen in your fear_

_Take it all away... Take it all away..._

* * *

_Am I kidnappin' her?_ Spike ponders as he carries the half-conscious Slayer through the dark streets of Sunnydale, heading by habit for the condemned, middle-of-nowhere factory. _Just for safekeepin', of course, not holdin' her ransom or anythin' of that sort... just protectin' her... Blimey, it'll be just my luck if this odd weakness of hers clears up right when I've got her alone. Reckon she'll sock me in the nose and run smilin' back to ol' Forehead._

Buffy hasn't said a word since he'd picked her up off the ground, only quivered with cold and shock, her hands and face hidden against his shoulder. As he reaches the factory and kicks in one of the ground-floor doors, Spike realizes that not once during the whole walk did he have even a thought of drinking from the girl. Her alluring Slayer scent is masked somewhat by the peach-shampoo smell of her hair – fruity and girly and innocent, a stark contrast to her usual vibe of pun-laced prowess. Most of what he can smell at the moment is his own blood, damp on his shoulder and still seeping from the half-scabbed barbed-wire cuts on his hands.

Crossing the large anteroom, where the cage that bore the Annoying One up to his blistery death still swings near the ceiling, Spike carries Buffy to the nearest staircase and down into the basement. He carefully avoids the hole in the stairs and the exposed rebar jutting out from the concrete, and then pauses when he reaches the bottom step, gazing around at the messy surroundings.

"Uh, reckon this spot is as good as any," he shrugs. "Don't think those pillocks managed to follow us here. Buffy?"

The cessation of movement seems to jar her out of her frozen, shaking shock, but only barely. She looks around through water-logged eyes, still locked tight around Spike, her tiny balled fists clutching his shirt collar like it's a life preserver.

"Wh... where are w-w-we?"

"The Old Factory. Basement. Couldn't think of anywhere else to go..." _Should've gone back to your mum's place if I'd screwed my brain on straight. Idiot_. "Just figured no one'd look here for you."

To his astonishment, she drops her head onto his shoulder again and starts weakly sobbing. Spike kneels to set her on the ground by the foot of the bed and awkwardly pats her back. Comfort has never been one of his strong suits; when Drusilla went into one of her babbling fits, all he could do was sit in a corner, drink some blood or booze, and wait for her pixies to stop yammering.

"Buffy? Uh... steady on, pet, there's a good girl. Easy does it..." _So much for being rough an' unfeelin'_. _Turnin' into a bleedin' wet nurse._

"You b-b-brought me here t-t-t-to kill m-me!"

"No!" he exclaims. "Got it all wrong, Slayer! Just helpin' scurry you away. Not gonna hurt a hair on your head, I swear."

"B-b-but... but before Christmas, y-y-you... c-c-came back to..."

_That was before I came to my senses, or lost 'em, rather. Realized that the thought of Peaches hurtin' you made me want to peel off every soddin' inch of his flesh and burn it._

"Had a change of heart," Spike murmurs honestly. " 'Sides, no matter how much I hate it here in Sunnyhell, it's better than that hundred-an-eighty-percent-humidity jungle where Dru and I shacked up. Also, no bloody howler monkeys here. Can't argue with that."

He starts to pull away, but she grips his shirt in both hands so strongly that if she'd had her full strength she would have ripped it right off of his chest.

"N-no! Don't leave me! Spike!"

Hearing her scream out his name in such an utterly terrified voice – as if the handful of his cotton shirt in her grasp is the only thing keeping her sane – is like a knife twisting in his gut. _Poor lil' thing... so scared she doesn't know whether to run from me or hang on for dear life._

"Shh... shh, Buffy... it's a'right now..."

She buries her face in his chest, bawling, her whole body shaking uncontrollably. He enfolds her in his arms again, biting back tears of his own and talking in soothing whispers.

"Shh... Buffy, gotta calm down... you'll make yourself sick..."

"I'm g-gonna die. I'm g-getting weaker and weaker. I don't want t-to die alone. Don't leave me!"

"Not gonna die. I'm not goin' anywhere, sweets. Was just gettin' you a blanket, stave off the shock. You can't keep shakin' like this, usin' up all your energy. Just let me get somethin' to wrap around you. I won't leave you, Buffy."

He gently pries her arms off his neck and, still kneeling beside her, wrests his duster off and tucks it around her for the time being. _Fitting_, he ponders as she tentatively pulls the leather a bit tighter, her pretty pink nails looking out of place against the black. _Slayer's coat on a Slayer again._

"That feel any better? Warmer?"

"S-smells like blood. Y-your shoulder," mumbles Buffy, noticing the sticky texture of his t-shirt.

"Got shot. Doesn't matter. What 'bout you?"

"I d-d-don't know... it hurts..."

"What hurts, luv? Gotta tell me."

She doesn't speak, so he inspects her, stroking her soft blonde tresses as her sobbing slowly quiets. There's heavy bruising on her right collarbone, between her tiny silver cross and the neckline of her layered white blouse, and also a bit of purple around her left eye, and she cradles her left arm like it's damaged.

"Lemme see your arm."

"No," she whimpers, wrapping his coat tighter around herself.

"Slayer, gotta check if you've wrenched somethin'."

Reluctantly, she stretches her left hand toward him, and he gently skims his fingers around each of hers in turn, then her wrist, then up her forearm to her elbow. Her shaking has not ceased, but her silent crying is now a mere sniffling. He shifts closer to her as his fingertips reach her shoulder, checking all her bones and muscles with extraordinary tenderness.

"Did I hurt you at all?" he murmurs. A skittish shake of her head is his only answer. "Well, nothin' seems wrong with you that I can suss out. Little brusin', scrapes on your knuckles. Who'd you punch, pet?"

"Th-there, there was th-th-that other one. Vampire. Heard humming. R-ran into him."

"That the one who took your coat, red fleece thing?"

Her shell-shocked face twitches briefly with suspicion. "H-how did you know I had a coat?"

"I.. uh, saw those human bilge rats checkin' you out not a minute before we crossed paths. I, um... I may have slashed them up a bit."

Buffy glances at the additional smudges of blood remaining around his shirt neckline and in the crease between his jawline and throat. _Spike attacked them for cat-calling me? Or was he just hungry? That must be it. He'd... he'd never stick up for me. More likely he'd join them in Pervert-ville._

"Well, y-yeah, the humming one t-t-took my coat."

"Think that must have been Kralik. Zachary Kralik, evil bastard, even for a vampire. Heard rumors down at Willy the Snitch's place, said some English types had brought him here. Well, don't worry your pretty head about him now, Slayer. Nothin's gonna hurt you here." _S'pecially not me_.

She stares at her own hand, still cradled in both of Spike's. "When... when I hit him it felt like my arm was broken. It hurt so much. I... I c-can't be just a person. I can't be helpless like this. Why is this happening to me?"

Spike shrugs his uninjured shoulder, softly gliding the pad of his thumb over her discolored knuckles, where the skin is split open in a few places.

"Pro'ly just some hex, or some demon spiked your milk. Reckon your Watcher and sidekicks'll work out what the trouble is, have you back to fightin' strength in no time."

She doesn't seem to take any comfort from his words, just cringes into the warmth of his leather duster, flexing her sore hand. Spike eyes the little cuts, and, reflexively, his tongue flicks out to the edge of his lips, sampling her scent in the air.

"If... if you want, I could fix these for you, pet," he murmurs, his thumb still tracing her knuckles.

"What?"

"I... well, I could... seal the cuts up."

"Seal...?"

As slowly as he can, he lets his demon visage rise to the surface with a crunch of shifting bone. Her eyes go wide and brim with tears again, shivers coursing across her skin.

"You w-want my blood. Th-that's why you s-s-s-saved me."

"No, it's not!" Spike insists, inwardly cursing his rashness. _Stupid blighter, makin' her think I want a snack_. "Not doin' it to get a taste of you! I said I wasn't gonna harm you, an' I mean that. Just thought I could patch you up a bit. Can't do a thing for the bruises, but could take care of these cuts in a half-second."

He suddenly becomes aware that – despite her fear – she hasn't pulled her hand out of his, perhaps because she knows he could just yank it back if he truly wished to. _This_ is the girl who broke his back... and now she trembles at his every motion, waiting for him to turn on her and snap her neck.

"Look... this is all I'm gonna do." Maintaining eye-contact with Buffy, he raises her knuckles to his lips and just barely flicks his tongue across the cracked skin on her index finger. She squints in slight surprise at how cooling and comforting the sensation feels, the first tiny cut looking significantly better than the rest of her fingers.

"That alright?" asks Spike cautiously, savoring the single drop of Slayer ambrosia... but also tasting the faintest hint of something bitter mixed in with her blood, something that stings in his throat as he swallows. _She's... she's been poisoned! Dear God_...

"I... yeah... I guess," Buffy mumbles.

"Alright if I do the rest?"

"Okay."

Holding her hand more assuredly now, he lowers his mouth and runs the tip of his tongue across the row of her knuckles, cleaning all the blood from the surface of her skin.

Accidentally at first, he stops just licking and fully presses his lips to her injuries, softly caressing, his vampire face retracting without his notice. Despite the unnatural taint in her bloodstream, his own body revels at the power in those few precious drops, sealing his shoulder wound almost instantly... and the rest floods into his groin. Painfully hard in mere moments, he lets out the slightest moan, head still bowed over her hand.

"Spike!"

Her voice – harsh, disgusted, and familiarly annoyed – crashes against his ears like a whip lash, and he suddenly realizes his healing strokes to her fingers have devolved into unmistakable, _worshipful_ kisses. He drops her hand immediately and leans away, arms raised in a show of surrender.

Unfortunately for him, there's Slayer spark back in her eyes.

* * *

_To be continued..._


	8. Chapter 8: Truce

_Author's Note: For the sake of the effects I want to have, the organic compounds that are weakening Buffy are bio-cumulative with a small time delay so that even though she's not being dosed anymore, the symptoms are still increasing. I did a tiny bit of research on muscle relaxants and adrenal exhaustion, but... with great fiction comes great creative license. It doesn't have to be medically accurate, just reasonable (or at least I try to write that way. Some authors don't.) Enjoy! This chapter is a little dialog heavy._

_Also, if you're waiting on an update to my other smaller fics, I apologize for the wait. I go where the inspiration is flowing and usually that's also where the most reader interest is. All my fics will be completed eventually. _

* * *

Chapter 8: Truce

Green eyes stare hatefully into blue, then at her hand, and then back at him.

"What the hell were you doing?"

"I... well, I..." _Right, back to rough an' unfeelin' it is. _"Had to do somethin' to get you to stop cryin'. Figured pissin' you off was the way to do it."

He vamps again with a snarl – making her squeak and shrink back slightly – and licks the barbed-wire cuts on his own hands as exaggeratedly and grossly as possible, slathering his tongue over his palms.

"You are obscene," grumbles Buffy, even as she tightens his duster around her still-shivering shoulders, hiding both her arms underneath the leather.

"Yeah, you're welcome, Slayer," he retorts irritably, handsome face replacing the furrowed brow and sunken eyes, fangs retracting into gums. "Next time, you can climb your own bleedin' fence an' I'll just stand back an' watch."

She scowls and sits a little straighter against the foot of the bed, trying to burrow deeper into his coat.

"Cold, Slayer?" _Pale face and white shirt and that tuft of golden hair… poor little thing's like a ruddy ghost. And there I go again, turnin' back into soddin' tender-hearted William_.

"No."

" 'No, not cold' or 'No, don't need help from the likes of demons'?"

"I don't want your help."

"Funny," he mutters, yanking a blanket off the bed and tossing it at her, " 'cause I seem to recall a lot of _'Oh Spike, don't leave me, don't let me die alone'_. Think I liked you better when you were all weepy and stutter-y."

"Shut up."

To Buffy's surprise, he does. Stomping a few feet away, Spike sifts through a pile of debris on the floor until he finds two ratty cloths to wind around his healing palms, his thoughts seething. _Soddin', barkin'-mad idiot! Sayin' "I liked you" right in front of 'er. Might as well hand the girl a broom handle and beg her to stake me. Hope to God whatever she's been shot up with has affected her hearin'._

"Why did you bring me here?" Buffy demands, her voice quieter and a pout on her lips as she assesses the dark factory basement, his hair and ivory skin the most visible thing in the room.

"Told you a'ready. First place I thought of. Figured the vamps who attacked you wouldn't think to trace you back to this dive. Good spot to hide and let the..." he gestures vaguely at her and lights up a cigarette, taking care not to ignite the makeshift bandages, "_whatever's_ wrong with you, blow over."

"They'll know where you've taken me, Spike," she says with narrowing eyes. She removes his coat, pushes it away across the floor, and bundles up in the blanket instead.

"Who? Kralik and his empty-headed lil' minion?"

"No. My friends."

"Explain that to me, pet?" he grins. "No one in this whole bloody town 'cept Angel, that snitchin' weasel barkeep, and the vamps who nearly made mincemeat of you know that I'm back in Sunny-D."

Her eyes widen for a moment before she manages to assume an unconcerned face again. _Angel knows he's here? Angel… he could trace him back to this place… if I hadn't told him to stay away from me. _"W-well... when I don't show up for school tomorrow, Willow and Xander are going to flip."

Spike smirks, snatching up his coat and shoving his arms back into the sleeves, the leather now bearing the faintest traces of her alluring scent. _Mmm… Slayer musk…_ "Saturday, pet. No lessons on Saturday."

"So, w-what, you're going to hold me hostage?" Buffy demands, barely keeping the fear from her voice. _He really could kill me, do anything he wants to me… and I don't have the strength to stop him_. "What do you want, Spike? Money? Blood? Revenge?"

He rolls his eyes and turns away from her, taking a long draw on his cig. "Nice to know how you really think about me, pet."

"Actually, I try not to think about you much at all," she shrugs, smiling sarcastically. "But you _are_ holding me hostage."

"No, I'm bloody-well not!" he growls, spinning to face her, barely keeping a lid on his temper. "I'm _protectin'_ you, you silly bint! Saved your bleedin' life!"

"I... I don't want your protection," says Buffy in a small voice, surprised by the fervor of his reaction.

"Not holdin' you here 'gainst your will," he mutters, sounding surly, almost rejected. He indicates the damaged steps with the glowing tip of his cigarette. "There's the stair if you really fancy leavin', wanderin' the streets alone. Go on. Watch the rebar on your way out."

Buffy glances at the hazardous staircase, cluttered with trash and chunks of broken concrete, rusted steel protruding at odd angles. If she climbed that and left the factory… yes, she'd be free from Spike, but she has much more to fear now than just feral vampires. As the school bully and those cantankerous drunk workers had demonstrated, even humans could be dangerous. And right now she feels too weak to slay anything bigger than a fruit fly.

"You… you really don't want to hurt me?" she asks, fixing Spike with a wary but curious stare.

"How'd you suss that bit of brilliance out, Slayer? Only took me sayin' it three or four soddin' times."

"It… just doesn't make sense. You hate my guts, and I hate your guts more. Why would you rescue me?"

He kicks the bedstead lightly with his steel-toed boot, eyes on the floor as his head tries to sort through his own bewildering actions and motives. _'Cuz I can't stop thinkin' about you… tried my darnedest, but couldn't… and Dru wouldn't have anythin' to do with me because she could tell I'm fixated on you, pet. 'Cuz I've always fallen for birds that are above me – Cecily, Drusilla, an' now you, baby. An' I knew I had to get you away from Angelus an' his shaky soul before your pretty blood stained his lips. 'Cuz I've always let my heart rule, not my brain. That's the reason I didn't change into a monster when the demon took up shop in my innards, didn't change the man I am, just made me a little wilder. Still poncy William Pratt deep down, still a gentleman._

"Uh… hello?" prompts Buffy, watching Spike's silent, contemplating form.

"I… just didn't think you deserved it, bein' hurt by those gutless sods, or by Kralik. Thought you've got the right to go out fightin' full strength, like a proper Slayer. You're the best opponent I've had in over twenty years, made my unlife a little less borin'. That's all."

Buffy raises an eyebrow.

"You're a terrible liar, Spike. What else is it?"

"What's the use in me sayin' anythin'? Not gonna convince you," he scoffs, half to himself. "Gonna think badly of me no matter what. Did it ever occur to you, Summers, that you don't _know_ me? A few little battles, a single truce, an' then a run-in over hot cocoa, and you think you _know_ me?"

"But you think you know _me_?" she counters.

"Made a reputation studyin' an' fightin' Slayers, luv. I pro'ly know more 'bout what you _are_ than you do."

"So why am I sick, Mr. Slayer Expert? Why have I lost my powers?"

His mouth turns dry, and he swallows twice before answerin'. "Well, I… I could taste somethin', somethin' off in your blood. Don't know squat about chemistry, just know somethin' there that shouldn't be, a poison."

"_Poison?_" she repeats in a gasp. "I… I _am_ gonna die?"

"I dunno!" he shouts back, internally smacking himself. "Just said I don't know _what_ it is, just a unnatural taste. Makin' yourself crazy worryin' over it won't help. Guess the best you can do is wait it out."

"Or I should go to the _hospital_, you idiot!"

"An' tell 'em what? '_Evenin' Doc, I'm a superhero who's lost my powers on account of some potion or other, an' now I'm a normal little girl. Fix me up so I can return to my sacred duty of slayin' vampires and demons'_? Flawless plan, Slayer. Bloody brilliant. Up you get. Let's go. Tally-ho an' all that."

She scowls, considering the alternative and almost instantly contemning her own suggestion. _I hate hospitals… and he's right. For a normal girl, I'm fine. Doctors wouldn't find anything wrong with me… and if I hinted at the real problem, they probably ship me off to a nuthouse like my parents did._

"No," answers Buffy, her voice steely. "I'll… I'll wait it out."

"A'right then. So… let's get a couple things straight. I'm not gonna hurt you, 'nless you piss me off royally, and then you'd deserve it. So you can stop lookin' at me like you're waitin' for me to morph into a snarlin' beast, a'right?"

"Okay."

"Truce, Slayer?"

"Yeah. Yeah, truce. Just stay over there and be quiet. And don't waft your stupid smoke anywhere near me," she grumbles, tightening the ratty blanket around her torso.

"Fine by me."

* * *

"Oh, I'm sorry… what was that, Director?" Kralik sneers into the human's mangled face. "My hearing just isn't what it used to me. So many little girls and boys screaming inside my head."

"I… want… my phone call."

"What's that?"

"Phone… call."

"Phone call?" Kralik snorts, glancing at Blair. "Do we give phone calls?"

Blair isn't lucid enough to reply, just grimaces at his leader with a twisted smile and licks some of Travers's spilled blood from a fingertip.

"Eh, I suppose I'm a reasonable vampire," grins Kralik, loosening Travers from the confines of the box - the vampire's own former prison - and shoving the elderly man to the ground. "Off to the parlor, there's a good boy. Two minutes… and then we kill you."

Bones grating, bleeding everywhere, Quentin crawls into the sitting room of the Sunnydale Arms and gropes for the telephone. With shaking fingers he dials the international number, directs to London then to the Watcher's Council, and holds the receiver to his ear.

"Council Headquarters."

"Nigel," coughs Quentin, recognizing the voice immediately. "It's… Travers. Code Rong-Wood. Get… Roger. Quick, man."

"Yes, sir, of course, sir," Nigel splutters, and then Travers hears the sound of the line transferring to Occult Archives, the branch managed by Wyndam-Pryce and his son. Behind him, Quentin hears a dark chuckle and the droning hum of the deranged vampire, and a shudder runs through his weakening limbs.

"Archives, Wyndam-Pryce."

"Roger… Roger, listen…"

"My god, Quentin, is that you?"

"Don't… have much time. You are... Director now, Roger. Do you understand?"

"I… yes, but…" splutters the promoted Watcher, but Quentin's hoarse voice cuts him off.

"And… your... your s-son."

"Wesley?"

"He... was to be... her Watcher... Summers..."

"To replace Rupert Giles as Buffy Summer's Watcher?" Roger clarifies.

"Y-yes... but... too late... Will... William... the Bloody... killed..."

"Code Rong-Wood. So Miss Summers is dead?"

"Ye... yes... b-but... Wesley... Watcher... Miss Lehane..."

"I understand, Quentin. My boy will assume the role of Watcher for Faith Lehane. We will fly to Sunnydale at once, assess the… the damage."

"Good man. You must… must stop Kra– "

"Sorry, old man," says a guttural voice in Travers's other ear, and he feels the phone being ripped away and crunched in a supernatural fist. "Time's up."

* * *

_To be continued…_

_Author's notes: This just occurred to me: writing Kralik is kind of like writing a more sadistic, male Drusilla. Ha, I'm so weird. Please leave a review!_


	9. Chapter 9: Midnight Snack

_Author's note: Thank you Jhiz, greengirl82, Jeremy Shane, ObsessedwReading, and Synchronicity7745 for reviewing! More Spike-Buffy banter in this chapter, which is also the longest one yet. I hope all of you like it! Please review!_

_Author's note 2: Everyone, my friend, traveller19, just wrote me a birthday-fic, where the Avengers watch "Once More with Feeling" and convert to Spuffy. It's called 'Scoobies, Assemble!' and it's hilarious and beautiful and deserves to be read and fawned over. I'm attempting to attach the link, but just searching for "Scoobies, Assemble!" or her author name will do the trick. _ s/9711397/1/Scoobies-Assemble

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Chapter 9: Midnight Snack

"Stop that!"

"I didn't say anythin', Slayer."

"But I can hear you grumbling or growling or whatever freaky vamp thing you're doing."

"It's not me, pet. It's your stomach churnin'," Spike mutters churlishly, almost gnawing through the butt of another cigarette. _Why did I have to fall madly in love with the annoying little bint who hates me enough to use my guts for garters?_

"It is _so_ not my –"

The not-so-little grumble announces its presence again, and Spike chuckles at the petulant scowl on Buffy's face. She hikes her knees closer to her chest, still refusing to stand up and even attempt to find a more comfortable spot in the room.

"I… I s'pose I could fetch you somethin' to slack that…" _Easy now, mate, don't be a bootlickin' poofter…_ "I-I mean, anythin' better than havin' to hear your innards howlin' like a black abyss. There's a gas station 'bout a block up Seventeenth Avenue. I could –"

"No!" gasps Buffy, so sharply that at first Spike suspects the sound is a sudden onslaught of hiccups.

"Come again, pet?"

"I… no. Don't… don't go anywhere. The last thing I need is for you to lock me down here and let me starve to death like you were gonna do to Willow and Xander."

Spike clamps his jaw shut tight, rival emotions jockeying to force words out of his mouth. _There she goes again, s'pectin' I'm just lookin' for a chance to hurt her. But she doesn't want me to leave her, guess that's somethin'. Not like she has swell options: bein' alone in the dark with a vampire she wouldn't trust with a ten foot stake, or bein' alone in the dark with nothin' but the fear of whatever drug weaseled its way into her system._

"Suit yourself," he shrugs, dropping his cigarette to the concrete floor and mashing the butt beneath the sole of his boot. "Bound to get mighty stir-crazy in here, though, with your gullet all empty. You the kind of girl what gets bitchy when she's hungry?"

If looks could stake, he'd be nothing but a pile of romantically frustrated ash at that moment.

"Check," Spike smirks. "One hungry an' bitchy Slayer."

"Shut up," Buffy gripes, finally agitated enough to move. She rises all the way to her feet and takes one step forward before crumpling with a sharp whimper that shreds into Spike like buckshot.

"Buffy!"

He crosses the room in two strides, drops to his knees at her side, and gently touches her blanket-shrouded shoulder. "Luv, are you hurt?"

"No," she mutters resentfully, teeth tightly clenched. _I'm just empty… no powers, no energy, and no one here whose help I'd accept_. "I mean, yeah, but not _hurt_-hurt. Sore from running and then sitting all crunched up for the last half hour."

"I'm sorry. I would've moved you 'till you were more comfy if you'd said anythin'."

Taken aback by the sudden softness in his voice, Buffy glances up and only then realizes how very _very _ close his face is. Her eyes jump from feature to feature like a microscope switching focus – deep blue eyes, the white Y-shaped scar through his eyebrow, razor-sharp cheekbones, his glossy eyes again, rimmed by long black lashes. And his lips… faintly tinted pink, barely open, moist and full and…

_Oh my freaking gosh! I'm ogling Spike's lips! And… is he bending CLOSER?!_

She shies away from him and thumps her head on the bed's footboard.

"Ow!"

"Aw, pet," he whispers sweetly, "what've you done to yourself?"

"Stop calling me all these stupid British names!" she snaps, holding her head. "You're such an asinine freak! 'Pet'. 'Love'. Eww. Not sure which one is worse."

He stands and turns away so she can't see the wince cut across his face, so he can urge a growl into his voice and make it seem like anger. _Doin' every soddin' thing I can think of for her… and she treats me like an ant under her heel._

"Fine, _Buffy_. Would you like to sit somewhere else, _Buffy_?" he asks, pointedly over-enunciating her name.

_Whoa… take-it-personal-guy, much_…

"Just… help me up," she orders. Spike lets out a long deep rumble in his throat.

"_Help_ you? Thought you didn't _want_ any help from a creature of the night, fit for nothin' but a sharp stab of the wooden variety. Thought acceptin' help from me was _beneath you_." _Like I'm beneath you… figuratively, anyway, since I'm standin' an' she's on the floor._

"Well, my legs hurt, and I'm sick of squatting here, but I guess if you're going to pout instead of help me, I'll do it myself."

He steps close to her again just as she sits up straight, and she expects him to roughly haul her to her feet and deposit her on the bed, and maybe that wouldn't be enough for him. Maybe he would join her, violently – _heck, it's not like I could stop him… oh god, I couldn't stop him, and nobody would hear me scream_. _Oh god_…

What she _doesn't_ expect is for him to tenderly reach across her back, secure his hands underneath both her elbows, and hoist her up slowly, letting her rest as much of her weight on his lean body as she wants.

"Where to, Buffy?"

_How did he manage to make my _actual_ name sound like a pet name? Must be the stupid accent._

"Not a lot of options," she shrugs, realizing too late that because of how he's supporting her, the indifferent raise of her shoulders causes her to rub her entire upper back against his chest, the blanket slipping as she stands.

"Leave the blanket, pe– sorry, _Buffy_. I'll give it back to you once you're all situated. Would you like to sit on the bed there?"

"Yeah, that's fine, but would you just stop saying my name like that?"

"Like how, Buffy?" he smirks slightly as he guides her around to the side of the bed and raises her just the height she needs to perch on the rumpled mattress and tattered blankets.

"Like how you keep saying it," she grumbles, shuddering slightly at the sight of all the caked blood on her white blouse, now that the blanket is removed. _His blood… he shredded his hands trying to save me… in what silly, messed-up universe does _Spike_ end up the one who saves me?_ "Just don't talk to me at all. Better yet, stand _way over there_ where I can't see you."

She waves a hand at the corner of the dark basement opposite to the ladder, slightly fearing if she points him towards the stairs, he might take it as his cue to leave. As much as she would point-blank deny it if he asks her, she doesn't want him to just abandon her, at least not until morning, when she can find her way home.

"Right," he scoffs, snatching the blanket up from the floor and handing it to her. "So you want me here, but don't want to _know_ that I'm here?"

"Pretty much."

"Figured that 'bout summed it up," he mutters. He watches her wrap herself in the blanket while he lights another cigarette, the glowing tip adding just the faintest illumination to the otherwise shaded basement. The scratches in his cheek – courtesy of the feral vampire minion's claws – itch irritably, and he scratches idly at them, sighing.

"What?" Buffy instantly demands.

"Buffy, I didn't say _anything_. Could you give me a soddin' break here, please?" he asks, feeling tired, exasperated, and thoroughly maltreated in reward for his thrilling heroics. "I'm doin' my ruddy best here, an' you're gripin' my ears off. I save your life, give you shelter, offer to fetch food… what else do I have to do to play nice? Foot-massage?"

"If you touch my feet, I swear I will stake you," glowers Buffy, tucking her shoes under another layer of covers, ignoring the musty smell emanating from them._  
_

"Fine, nix the foot-massage." _Hmm, mighty defensive, are we? Pro'ly just sussed out a ticklish spot._ "All I'm sayin' is, I promised not to hurt you, an' –"

"Yeah, like the promise of a vampire means much…"

"I gave my word," he says, slowly and firmly, "and I'm no welsher, Buffy. I promised you wouldn't be hurt, an' I'm damn sure gonna stop anythin' that tries."

She closes her mouth tightly, quailing slightly at the intensity of his tone. It's too dark for her to be able to tell if the scowl on his face is one of determination, irritation, or bloodlust.

"So…" he finally continues, puffing on his cig, "the least you can do is be a bit more civil to a fella, a'right? No tellin' what's come over you or how long it's gonna last, but whatever it is, I'll be here watchin' over you 'till you can fight it on your own. So… let's stop tryin' to pour salt in each others' wounds, eh? Plenty of other ways to pass the time…"

Knowing he's probably being incredibly stupid and undermining any progress he might have just made, he gives her a long, lusty look – simpering lips and smoldering eyes – and trails one hand down his chest toward his belt. Buffy scowls with revulsion.

"Eww! That'd be like incest."

Spike chokes, inhales half a lungful of cigarette smoke through his nose, chokes again, and sprays smoke rings all around his head, eyes watering. "It'd be _WHAT?_"

"I'm Angel's girl." _Or I was until tonight, when I realized I was afraid of him, of what he could do to me..._ "You're his… vampire descendant or whatever you call it."

"The term is 'childe'. He's my grand-sire. I'm the dosser's grand-childe."

"Yeah, that. If you... touched me, or did anything sick like you're acting like you would, it'd be like... like a son hitting on his dad's girlfriend."

"That's... ugh!" _Cripes, does she see me like that? Like I'm just the cast-off whelp of her stalker turned ex-snuggle-bunny-stalker? Oh, hell. Ohhhh, soddin' hell, I'm doomed._

"You were the one making icky come-hither faces!" protests Buffy, slightly confused by Spike's absolutely horrorstruck expression as he paces by the foot of the bed.

"You're the one who thought of it! I'm not his bleedin' kid! Blood relations among vampires don't work like that, not soddin' remotely! 'Sides, I've cut myself off from the whole Aurelius lot. Couldn't stand the sods. Any of 'em."

"Is that code for 'Dru broke up with me again'?" she quips, smirking.

"Mind your mouth, little girl," mutters Spike, more sullen than defensive. "I don't see Mr. Broody Block-of-Wood tryin' to protect _you_ in your... whatever's goin' on with you." _Good thing too. Maybe what I said to 'im actually got through to his pea-brain, how much he could hurt her_.

"I told him I was fine."

"'Cept a little short on the whole 'strength to fight the demons' bit."

"If Angel knew you were the one holding me hostage, he'd come find me and snap your neck."

_And then I'd be right back where I was in the mansion: weak, helpless, and alone in an abandoned place at night with a vampire who wants me enough to risk losing his soul and destroying everyone I love. Crap_._ At least Spike's just snarky… and surprisingly concerned about me._

"Nice to see your gratitude's improving," he drawls, nudging some of the refuse around with his foot. "'Stead of threatenin' to off me yourself, you've delegated the unpleasant task to your former squeeze… Oh, look! Candles."

Losing his forced surliness at once, Spike sinks to one knee, rummages around, picks up the biggest three, and fishes out his lighter. He wipes a clear spot on the nearest flat surface – a dusty bureau beside the bed – and clicks his flame to life, leaving a tiny glowing flicker that brightens up the area around Buffy before he moves across to another piece of furniture.

"Are you sure those aren't Willow's magic candles from when you _kidnapped _her?" asks Buffy, disguising her relief as the mood lighting transforms the dark basement.

"Don't smell all herb-y. Plain ol' wax variety, so far as I can tell."

"I'm still mad at you about that, you know."

"What?" he gapes, pausing in bafflement as he prepares to light the third candle. "You liked it _better_ all dark and spook-ridden? Buffy, I can't keep up, how'm I s'posed to –?"

"No, the light is great. Really great. I meant Willow and Xander, and how putting them in an impending death situation made them make with the smoochies, and Cordelia got shish-kabobbed and hates Xander now, and Willow and Oz seem to have made up but I'm not sure. But it never would've happened if you hadn't brought them here."

"So it's _my_ fault your two best mates, after years of knowin' each other, suddenly decided they wanted to rub noses?" he inquires. "That your new mantra, Slayer? Somethin' goes wrong in your life, blame Spike? Awful ungrateful of you to be whingin' about me, don't you thi–… Slayer?... Buffy?"

She ignores him, staring at her watch, the face finally bright enough to read in the candlelight.

"It's past midnight."

"So?" mutters Spike, holding up his lighter for yet another smoke.

"It's... my birthday."

Spike freezes, his cigarette unlit, silently watching her. _Girl saves the town every night, saves the world on a regular basis… ought'a have one night a year to be surrounded by family and friends, enjoying her special day… 'stead of bein' holed up in a basement with a creature she loathes, no matter how different he feels 'bout her._

"I... er... Happy Birthday, Buffy," he finally murmurs, chagrinned by his previous brusqueness. "Do you... are you sure you don't want me to go out right quick an' fetch you somethin'? Certain foods you like, somethin' to cheer you up a bit? I swear I'd come back so fast you'll not even have time to miss me."

She looks up at him, green eyes full of tiredness and a residual fear. _Don't leave me…_

"No… but… thank you, Spike. For offering."

He pats down his jacket pockets, checking for anything he could casually offer up as a present, but finds only his predictable lighter, switchblade, and the cigarettes and wallet of the policeman he'd killed after plowing his car through the Sunnydale welcome sign. Buffy eyes him, and when he notices her curious glance, he shrugs and scratches the back of his head.

"Uh, I… thought I might've had a deck of cards on me or somethin' you could amuse yourself with, but 'fraid not. Sorry, luv – Buffy! Sorry. I meant 'Buffy'. Won't use the little endearments if you hate 'em so much. Not that they're, uh, endearin'. I mean…"

"It doesn't matter."

Too tired to care what he calls her, Buffy rubs her forehead, trying to knead away the ache that's been consistently building just over her left eyebrow.

"Does your eye hurt?"

"All of me hurts," she replies, more of a sigh than a pout. Her arms wrap around her middle again, trying to quell the renewed rumblings.

"Is there anything I can do?" asks Spike softly. _There I go again, soundin' all poncy._

_There he goes again, being all nice and sweet and very un-Spike-like._

"No," she mumbles, burrowing her legs all the way underneath the covers and knotting up her hands in her lap. "I just want to get better."

"If I knew what the chemical bugaboo was, I'd fix you up straightaway," he says genuinely, biting back the closing "_pet"_ that nearly leaves his lips, trying to keep her appeased.

"I just hate being weak like this. And my birthday's gonna suck if I'm stuck here with you. I was gonna hang out with Willow, paint each others' nails and do normal-girl stuff. We got Lunchables and everything."

"Come again?" inquires Spike, pausing in the middle of yet another attempt to light a cig.

"Lunchables. You do know what those _are_, right?"

"Yes, I ruddy well know what Lunchables are. Threw me for a loop, is all."

"Why?"

"Just didn't peg the mighty Slayer as bein' a fan of the most saline-pumped, sugary concoction that ever got approved as a child's meal. You're… what, seventeen, thereabouts?"

"Eighteen."

_Supposed to be an important birthday, supposed to be special, even if I'm still a long way from that driver's license. But all my plans got screwed up one after another after another. Dad bailed, and any back-up plans involving Angel got thrown out the window… and now I'm stuck with Spike. I shouldn't feel safe. I should feel the complete opposite of safe… which would be unsafe. Very unsafe. So... why don't I? Why do I feel safer with _him_ than I've felt with Angel since he came back?_

"Eighteen? Really?"

Something nags at Spike from a back corner of his brain, some little piece of Slayer info he'd gleaned during his century of obsession…

"Is this some kind of shortness joke? 'Cuz it's not funny," huffs Buffy tiredly, cutting off his train of thought.

"What? No… no, just… thinkin' 'bout som'mit. Eighteen, eh?"

"Uh-huh."

"I was still human when I was eighteen. Barely remember it. Barely remember anythin' from before I became a vampire. The little memories I have are… sort-of out'a focus, like I was wearin' lenses thicker than your ol' Watcher's."

"Giles isn't _that_ old," she mumbles, eyes drooping, chin coming to rest on her chest.

"Guess watchin' over _you_ is makin' him go grey early, eh?" grins Spike, dusting off a chair and setting it in the corner Buffy had indicated, even though the whole room is faintly lit now, preventing him from being completely invisible to her no matter where he sits. "But anyhow, what I do remember 'bout bein'… wait… Watcher… eighteen… oh. Oh bollocks."

The connection is so obvious that he wants to smack himself for not sussing it out sooner. Her eighteenth birthday… the mysterious weakness…

"Buffy, I've got it! Reckon I know what's happenin' to you," he announces, standing again and stepping over to her. "Think it's called Cruciamentum, Latin for torture. Callous practice. Turns out, your Watcher's gone and…"

His mouth hangs open, the rest of his sentence silenced. Buffy Summers is sound asleep, half-upright against the stacked pillows and the headboard, little uneasy breaths inflating and deflating her ribcage. Her arms are still wrapped tightly around her stomach as if to keep her internal organs from grumbling right out.

"Aw, sweetheart..."

Hesitantly, Spike crosses the rest of the way to her side, supports her back with one of his arms, and slips one of the pillows out from behind her so she can recline in a flatter position. He tucks the blankets tighter around her and just gazes at her for a minute until he's absolutely certain she's dozing deeply.

Then, with an anxious swallow to buck up his courage, he bends over and – ever so gently – brushes his lips to the bruised skin above her left eye.

"Be back 'fore you can miss me, luv. Off to get a nummy treat for my girl."

Moving away from her on tiptoe, he heads for the stairs, ascends in three leather-swishing jumps, and charges out of the empty factory and into the night.

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_To be continued…_

_Please review!_


	10. Chapter 10: Errand Boy

_Author's notes: The stuff Spike gets might be a slight anachronism. I'm not sure what would likely have been available in small-town Californian gas stations in 1999. Just roll with it and enjoy the fluff, pretty please. This is the chapter that would not end! ;)_

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Chapter 10: Errand Boy

Turning up his collar, Spike pulls open the door to the gas station's attached convenience store and struts inside, chin tucked in the unlikely event that anyone in this out-of-the-way joint might recognize him. His astute eyes skirting the shelf contents like pinballs, he wanders the aisles under the cheap fluorescent lights, skeptically wary. The large mirrors in the store's upper corners ignore his presence, of course, so he helps himself to the first item on his mental list, slipping a bottle of aspirin into an inner pocket of his duster. The next aisle over, a couple Cliff bars and a package of beef jerky join the aspirin, and then Spike turns to face the refrigerated section at the back of the store.

"Lunchables… what the soddin' hell 'ave I gotten myself into?" he mutters, reading the names of the yellow cardboard packages. "An' they've all got meat in 'em… means I'll 'ave to keep 'em cold if she doesn't want 'em right away. Best to let the poor girl sleep as long as she can."

"Do you need any help, young man?"

He whips around at the gravely female voice – the slight jangling of the pill bottle in his pocket sounding suspiciously loud in his enhanced ears – and locks eyes with a petite woman who looks about as old as him, without the vampire agelessness. Her close cropped silver hair makes her head somewhat emulate that of a bald eagle, and her dark beady eyes are obscured by thick glasses.

"Uh… no," he shrugs. "Just, uh, gettin' a lil' somethin' for my bird."

"Late night cravings, hmm?" the elderly lady smiles, taking a few slightly tottering steps towards him, leaning on her walker. Spike draws back, wondering why the instinctive fear that most humans experience near demons like him is having no effect on her. "You're a lucky boy, very lucky. How far along is she?"

Spike's eyes widen, the little blood he's consumed in the last day draining from his face.

"Uh, 's not like that. Er, my girl, that is…"

"I remember like it was yesterday," the woman continues sentimentally. "When my oldest, Jim, was on the way, all I wanted to eat was pickled herring and buttermilk pancakes. Not at the same time, of course."

"She's a lil' _sick_, is all," Spike blurts out, fight-or-flight instincts on red alert. "Not got a bun in the oven. In't possible." _'Nless Slayer's been gettin' happy with someone other than Tall, Dark, an' Forehead, which sounds more barkin' mad the longer I think about it_.

"Oh, my mistake," she smiles toothily. "My family has run this gas station for decades, and I must say you look an awful lot like the harried young husbands who rush in here at all hours of the night –"

"Missus works late shift," he invents, shifting uncomfortably from one foot to the other. "I _am_ in a bit of a rush here."

"Say no more," gushes the old lady, attempting what appears to be a wink at Spike. "I'll be down by checkout, dear, in case you need help finding anything."

She lifts her hand from her walker and pats his leather-clad sleeve before shuffling away, humming along to the big-band music softly playing through the store's audio system. Considerably more agitated now than he'd been when he entered, Spike opens the lightly pressurized fridge door and snatches up two boxes, then stomps toward the beverage aisle. He hooks a six-pack of water bottles under one arm, but then hesitates in front of the beer.

_Blast it! Now I've got to pay actual dosh for this rubbish. What if that dame decides to card me, havin' a laugh? Oh, sod it all. If they try to stop me, I'll just bite 'em._

Extracting two drinks for himself, he carries his goods to the register and dumps the Lunchables, water, and beer down on the counter.

"Add on a packet of Marlboro Ice Blasts if you stock 'em," he orders the pimply teenage boy behind the register. "And a… a five-pound bag of ice, if it's not too much trouble," he adds in a stilted but softer tone, noticing the store's matriarch creaking toward them, smiling at him in recognition.

"I.D.?" says the boy, methodically ringing up Spike's purchases and setting everything in a brown grocery bag.

Spike scowls, fangs seeking release from his human gums, but he keeps them in check and just gruffly mutters, "I'm twenty-six."

_Give or take a hundred. I was buyin' cigs an' booze before you were born, squirt._ _Before even Grandmum here was born, more likely than not…_

"Store policy," the kid mumbles, quailing slightly as he takes in Spike's long leather coat, dyed platinum hair, and scarred eyebrow. "Under forty, gotta see your I.D., man."

Glowering, Spike reaches into his inner duster pocket, attempting to keep the stolen aspirin bottle's rattling to a minimum as he fishes out the dead policeman's wallet. _Wonder if I can flash the license's dates at this joker with my thumb over the picture… Cripes, why do I even bother? It's been a'least a half hour by now, if Buffy's woken –_

"Tim, let the nice young man buy his beer."

The feathery-haired old woman joins her grandson at the register, beaming from him to Spike. The teenager shrugs, adds the ice bag and cigarettes to the total, and double-bags the paper.

"That'll be $17.31."

Spike forks over a twenty from the cop's wallet and draws the bag under one arm. "Ta, mate. Keep the cha–"

"Now, now, you can't go without your money. Tim's still in training, you see, so it's very important he gets practice," the grandmother smiles. "Okay, Tim, he gave you twenty dollars, so you owe him how much?"

Spike stands there gritting his teeth while the kid counts back his two dollars, two quarters, dime, nickel, and four pennies in change, a string of oaths running through his head. _Takin' so bloody long! Just give me my soddin' quid an' lemme get back to the girl I love before she wakes up alone and hates me more than she already does!_

"Much obliged, ducks," he barks out the moment the last penny falls into his palm and practically flees from the gas station before the store's matron has the chance to snag him with any other delay. He skirts the edges of buildings, letting the overhanging awnings conceal him from nearby street lamps, walking as quickly as possible without risk of dropping the grocery bag.

Reentering the factory, he adjusts the contents of the bag so that the Lunchables boxes lie flat on the bottom surface, covered by the icepack, with the loose water bottles and his beers lining the sides.

"Oh, bollocks. Meant to nick some WD-40 too," he exhales as he opens the basement door and the hinges creak ominously. He clicks the door locked behind him, slips back down the wrecked stairs, and lands on the floor with cat-like softness, his eyes instantly locking on the bed. A few frozen seconds later, a grin parts his lips.

"Right where I left you, sleepin' beauty."

Spike watches Buffy continue snoozing soundly, shivering a bit as she breathes, a pinched look on her face, as though she's attempting to solve math problems in her sleep. He sets the paper bag by the foot of the bed, then steps silently around the room and blows out the two shorter candles. Leaving the tallest one flickering on the bedside bureau, he finds a cracked ceramic plate among the debris littering the floor and scoots the plate under the remaining candle so that even if it does burn down while they sleep, it won't set fire to anything.

Their safety assured, Spike shrugs off his duster, places all its pockets' contents in the top of the grocery bag, and drapes it over the bed, adding another layer of warmth over the dozing girl. Shedding his red silk overshirt as well, he wads it up in his hands, grubbing at the left shoulder where his blood has dried in the fabric. Then, for a long moment, he stands there beside her, body and mind and demon all wresting for control of his actions.

_I sleep like the dead, pun aside, still as a log, no chance of wakin' her even if I lie down beside her…_

_But could I? With her warm body so close, her neck… the sweet scent of her… gettin' damn hard just thinkin' down that route…_

_And if she woke and saw me, just when she seems as though she may be startin' to trust me… Never been good at bein' patient. I follow my blood, which doesn't usually flow in the direction of my brain… like now._

_Bloody hell, she's gorgeous…_

Cursing his body's untimely eagerness, Spike loosens the cinch of his belt by two notches, adjusts himself inside the confines of his tight jeans, and just slinks down into a heap on the floor beside the bed, using his folded bloodstained shirt as a pillow.

* * *

His first thought upon waking several hours later is that he's never really noticed how pleasantly mornings smell. Even in the depths of the factory basement, his senses draw out the sweet tones of crisp midwinter air from the world outside. Dawn. New life. Sunshine. Slayer.

The Slayer in the room with him, tightly balled up on the bed, hands over her face, whimpering…

"Buffy?" Spike jumps up to his feet as Buffy's half-conscious bleating registers in his ears. "Slayer? Easy now, pet..."

He hesitantly reaches for her arms, but she recoils from his room-temperature skin, tangling herself in the musty sheets, her eyes still tightly closed.

"Buffy! You're havin' a nightmare."

This time he weaves his arms under her, lifts her into a somewhat upright position, and supports her against his firm chest. She gasps as her face and hands fall against him, her limbs almost as chilled as the vampire's, and he rubs one hand down her back, attempting to warm her.

"It… it h-hurts," she stutters, rigid fingers knotting into the fabric of his t-shirt like she had when he first brought her to the factory.

"Where, sweetheart?"

"All over. Aches. Cold. Make it st-st-stop."

"I know, lamb. It's a'right. I've got you."

"Angel?"

Spike winces straight through to his heart, but holds her tighter regardless, his chin resting over the top of her head. "Not him, luv. It's just me… it's Spike. Know I'm the last person dead or alive you'd expect to be holed up with, but I'll hide you an' protect you with my life 'till your strength comes back and you can kill the buggers who're after you."

Her eyes open at last, and her hands unclench to press flat against his upper body, feeling the corded muscle beneath the thin cotton.

"S... Sp… Spike?"

"Yeah, pet. Just me. Your ol' save-the-world pal."

He remains perfectly still, waiting either for her to dissolve back into weepy hysteria or for the Spike-hating part of her to shove him off. For a near minute, neither of them move except for Buffy's right arm, the angle of it changing gradually until her forearm lies just underneath his ribs, pressed against his cool stomach.

"My… my arm hurts the m-most."

"From hitin' Kralik?" asks Spike, his tone soft, almost dulcet. _She's touchin' me… puttin' my body temperature to good use. Can't heat her up… but I can soothe the hurt…_

"Uh-huh. I… I th-think it might need ice or something, but I'm so cold already."

"We have ice," he nods. "I got some last night, after you dozed off."

"You… you _did_ leave me?" she whispers, partly grumpy and accusatory, and partly laced with terror.

"I… yeah, I did. I'm sorry. I… your belly was rumblin'. I had to do somethin'. I didn't lock you down here if that makes you feel any better 'bout it. I was there an' back in the space of an hour. You slept the whole time."

"What if something slimy had wandered down here and eaten me?" she pouts, just a hint of her perky Slayer spark. "Some _protector_… not that I _need_ anybody's protection."

"Mm-hmm," he smirks. "Well, while I was up an' about, I gotcha somethin', Buffy."

"What?"

He reaches over to the side of the bed, hoists up the grocery bag, sets his beers and smokes aside, and begins unveiling the other contents, Buffy's jade eyes widening with each item.

_Water… and aspirin! Thank goodness! If he was a good guy, I'd totally hug him right now… jerky, I guess to help me stay strong, all the protein… Cliff bars! Oatmeal Raisin Walnut is my favorite! He's the luckiest evil guesser ever!... Ice… more ice… and… he didn't! Oh my god…_

"Happy Birthday, Buffy," Spike murmurs, handing her the two packets of Lunchables, still thoroughly cold from their icy insulation. "Little blighters weren't hard to find at all. I reckoned after offerin' to dash around a town that has witnessed some truly spectacular kickings of my ass to get you somethin' special for your eighteenth birthday, you could've made it a bit tougher on m–"

Her head moves so quickly that he immediately wonders if her strength has returned full-force and she's going to head-butt him. Instead, shock cleaves his brain as her lips form a tiny pucker and peck him on his left cheekbone.

_Soft and hard_, she thinks, leaning back and watching him for a reaction. _His skin… like velvet over glass… And… did I just do what I think I just did?_

Spike just gapes, the faint sound of her kiss echoing through his gobsmacked brain at a hundred times its actual volume.

"Th-thanks, Spike," mumbles Buffy, pink-faced, averting her eyes from him and picking up one of the waters. "This… I mean, I know it's not a big deal, but… this is the best present I've gotten so far this year." _Way better than a generic Hallmark card and 'I promise to make it up to you' flowers, or a poetry book and false reassurance that everything will be fine. _"Come to think of it, since I might be st–"

She almost says '_stuck with_', but all of a sudden the prospect of spending her birthday with Spike is nowhere near as unpleasant as she would have thought.

"… _Staying_ with you all day, and won't see whatever Willow or Giles or Mom got for me, this _is_ my best birthday present."

Spike's fairly sure his insides are turning to hot chocolate fondue and melting down like a waterfall of lava in the general region of his diaphragm.

"You're, um… you're welcome, luv…" he croaks out, fingers shaking slightly as he pops the bottle cap off of one of his beers. "Glad you like 'em. Uh, need help with that?"

Buffy pulls a face but hands him her water bottle, and he snaps off the lid she'd been struggling with for the past few seconds. Uncapping the aspirin, he dumps two tablets onto his palm and returns the water and medicine to her.

"Bugger. I keep thinkin' of other things I should've fetched for you," he sighs as she swallows the aspirin and takes two gulps of water before tugging open the first of the Lunchables boxes.

"Like what? You did great, super great."

"Well, clean togs for starters, somethin' not splotched up with my blood. Should've made a run by your house, but I s'pose your mum wouldn't have been kind enough to re-issue an invite after last month, s'pecially if she got the impression I was holdin' you hostage, which I'm _not_, of course, but, misrepresentation…"

Buffy ducks her head. "We didn't un-invite you."

"Come again?"

"My house. We didn't revoke your invitation."

Spike stares at her, still reeling from the kiss she'd fleetingly bestowed on him, and now even more stunned. _Thought she'd have learned her lesson, lettin' me waltz back in for cocoa with her mum, pretty as you please… so maybe there's just a hint of somethin' in her that doesn't want to shut me out. Another little dash of trust… guess I'm not as doomed as I thought._

* * *

Interrupted from her somber contemplation of her ex-husband's flower bouquet, Joyce Summers sets her coffee mug down on the kitchen countertop and steps into the living room to answer the telephone.

"Hello?"

"Hiya Mrs. Summers! It's Willow."

"Good morning, Willow, dear."

Smiling, Joyce carries the phone back into the kitchen. Since the recent misunderstanding over the demon posing as the dead Hansel and Gretel, she feels an above-and-beyond duty to show support for Willow and Buffy's friendship, even if it means sacrificing time with her birthday girl.

"I was just calling to see if Buffy had an E.T.A. for all the oodles of fun we had planned. She said I should call up at ten and see if she was still being snooze-Buffy."

"I haven't heard her moving around in her room. Just a moment, I'll go check on her…"

Willow waits patiently in her bedroom several blocks away, her eyes scanning the nail-salon supplies spread over a beach towel. In the hamster cage in the corner, Amy scampers around, adjusting to her new toys and surroundings… and to life as a rat in general. Then Mrs. Summers's voice returns.

"Willow, dear, Buffy isn't here. And… her bed doesn't look like it was slept in. I never heard her come home last night."

"Are… are you sure?"

Willow's mind races ahead at a terrifying pace. _Out last night, all night… her birthday eve… and she probably went to see Angel… oh god, how quickly can I order another Orb of Thesulah?!_

"I'll, um, I'll go over to see Giles and, er, ask how late Buffy was over at the library for training, okay, Mrs. Summers?" the redhead says in a rush, already dashing as far towards her closet as the phone cord allows, grabbing her nearest pair of sneakers.

"Oh, yes please, thank you, Willow. Let me give you the number for the gallery…"

Willow scribbles the phone number down with quaking fingers, gives Buffy's mother a falsely cheery goodbye, and then punches in Xander's number as soon as Joyce hangs up. Hopping around trying to put her shoes on one-handed, she accidently knocks over one of the polish bottles… and Red-Red-Rose spills out in a slowly expanding circle on the beach towel, a gory stain.

"Harris's, this is Xander."

"Xand! Meet me at Giles's! We've got trouble! Trouble with a capital T, and that rhymes with B, and that stands for Birthday. Buffy's missing!"

* * *

_To be continued..._


	11. Chapter 11: Side Effects

_Author's notes: Thank you everyone who has followed, favorited, and reviewed! My goal is to wrap this story up by the beginning of November so I can focus on the "Five Words" sequel for National Novel Writing Month. Enjoy the fluff!_

* * *

Chapter 11: Side Effects

_For a tiny little thing with barely any meat on 'er, Slayer sure can wolf down 'er nosh like the best of 'em_, Spike smirks, watching Buffy devour the first of the Lunchables packages and one of the Cliff Bars, her bites interspersed with huge swallows of water. _But I s'pose the poor girl was up half the night after bein' near-frightened to death._

"Feelin' any better after the munchies, luv?" he grins.

"Yeah, a lot… except now I'm kinda sleepy again. What time is it?"

Spike glances at the ceiling, inhaling deeply with a slight roll of his neck. "Reckon it's… ten thirty, give or take."

Buffy giggles. "_Pfft_. You can't tell what time it is from _sniffing_. And that's the ceiling, not the sky, doofus."

"_Vampire_ here, kitten," he laughs. "Not just the scent of the mornin' air. It's 'bout the angle of shadows, feelin' of the earth's heat, that sort. All demons have the knack, but bein' on the Hellmouth makes it that much easier."

"Oh. That's cool, I suppose."

"Comes in handy, not havin' to set foot outside to make sure it's safe for the sun-sensitive population."

He runs a hand up through his sleep-tousled hair, pushing it back from his forehead, and then notices Buffy's amused expression. "What?"

"You have sex hair!" she titters. His grin turns suggestive, and she blushes profusely. "Bed! I mean _bed_ hair. Sleep hair. Whatever."

"Do I?" Spike rolls up his eyes, pretending to observe his own mussed white-gold curls, then he just shrugs.

"You don't care?" asks Buffy, eyebrow tilting.

"Nah."

"Thank god! I thought it was a vampire vanity thing, uber-sacred hair."

"What, on account of the Great Poofter? Vanity is his bleedin' middle name." His bright smile alters into a charming smirk. "So… you like my sex hair?"

"Bed hair," Buffy corrects immediately. _Stupid mystery poison must be blocking all my inhibitions_. "And I didn't say I _liked_ it. I just observed. I've only ever seen it slicked back."

"Get it wet, an' it dries in corkscrews 'nless I gel it straight to my skull," he admits, feeling cool blood pooling in his cheeks, an undead blush. Buffy giggles, then hiccups, leans back against the propped-up pillows, and frowns, rubbing her collarbones to try to relieve the suddenly painful heaviness in her chest.

"Hey… you a'right?" asks Spike, cocking his head and setting his beer on the floor. "Not lookin' quite so chipper, luv."

"Heartburn," she mumbles. "Ate too fast."

"Aw, I'm sorry, pet. Forgot that could happen."

"It's fine. You couldn't have known. And it's not like you're my babysitter."

"Still gettin' babysat at your age, Slayer?" he teases, trying to conjure up her smile again. "Wear your big girl pants when you fight the widdle monsters?"

"Oh shut up," she snorts, hiccupping more severely. Her lips press together tightly, as though a bitter tang has filled her mouth.

"Hey, hey, hey… don't be sick now," urges Spike, snatching up another water bottle and nearly fracturing it in his haste to remove the lid. "Take little sips. Careful, luv…"

She nods and accepts the bottle, puckering her lips. "I hate hiccups, almost as bad as getting monster guts on my favorite shoes… or blood on white clothes."

"Yeah, gonna need a hearty amount of bleach to get that stain out," he says, bobbing his head at her spotted blouse. "Should consider wearin' black all the time, like me."

_God I love that smile of hers_…

"You? You're a fashion disaster! Who are you supposed to be? Billy Idol?"

"Oi! That wanker stole his look from _me_ twenty years ago!" he says, affronted. "Had my hair all fluffed and spiked up, piercings, the whole lot."

"_You_ had _piercings_?" snickers Buffy, staring at his ears but seeing no marks. "Did they heal up or something?"

He simpers, lips drawn together, dripping licentiousness. "Didn't have my _ears_ pierced, sweetheart."

Buffy's eyes go huge and flicker toward his belt before she can stop herself, taking the bait.

"You… ewww! Eww eww eww!"

Spike laughs so hard he falls off the edge of the bed, sending his capped beer bottle rolling away across the floor.

"My _eyebrow_!" he shouts out between laughs. "Had my eyebrow pierced, silly girl, right here over the scar. Can't believe you fell for that one! Got a right dirty mind, luv."

"How was I supposed to know?" she mutters, brick red. "You're an evil vampire dude! I just assumed you'd… you'd be…"

"Kinky?" he smirks, letting the tip of his tongue dance out between his teeth and linger against his upper lip. "Me an' my sex hair."

"You're never gonna let me live that down, are you?" says Buffy, pouting in embarrassment.

In response, Spike intentionally dishevels his hair even further, loosening the sections where the gel still tames it down._ I got her distracted from the achin' in her tummy, that's all that matters_.

"Oh my gosh. It _is_ fluffy!" Buffy snorts with laughter, scooting forward out of the covers. Her hands join his, kneading her knuckles through the silky platinum strands, fingernails barely brushing his scalp.

"That it is, lamb," Spike croaks, his ribald tone vanishing instantly, struggling to keep his eyes on hers and not on the pert little breasts bobbing so close to his face.

"_You_'re the lamb. I went to a petting zoo in LA when I was a kid, and even the baby lambs' wool wasn't… wasn't as soft as…"

Her voice drops away. Slowly, she registers every part of her body that's in close proximity to Spike – her kneecaps on his thigh, her hands intertwined in the downy cotton on the crown of his head, her elbows on either side of his chin, pressing her cleavage an inch from his barely-open mouth. His gaze remains affixed to her eyes, his Adam's apple bobbing as he repeatedly swallows. If she drops her chin just slightly… accidently, even… she could find out if his pale pink lips are as soft as…

Squeaking as she shoves herself away from him, Buffy scoots backwards until she's flat to the headboard, warily wondering if Spike will pursue her across the bed. He doesn't move except to close his eyes, and his chest shudders with a tiny breath.

"Sorry," she whispers, the single word a quick, fearful bark. Spike's eyes reopen – azure gems reflecting the candle's sputtering glow – and he smiles hesitantly.

"Hey… it's alright, Buffy."

"I didn't mean to… be tempty, or anything."

He chuckles, angling his seated body slightly away from her, hoping she won't notice how very tempted he is.

"I know you didn't mean anythin' like that." _Now, me an' my raging hard-on don't always see matters in the same light…_ "Not mad. Not gonna… do anythin'. What's a little scalp massage between circumstance-thrown friends, eh? Bet my grand-poofter got pissed if you laid a finger on his luscious locks, eh?"

"Well… yeah," she admits. _Friends… he just called us friends. Is that what we are? William the Bloody, slayer of Slayers, considering himself friends with the most helpless Slayer he's ever encountered?_

"For a bloke who hasn't looked in a mirror in two centuries, he takes his self-proclaimed angel-face looks pretty damn seriously," snorts Spike, unaware of the effect his words have galvanized in the girl. "Mister silk shirts and hideous velvet coats and that cardamom stuff he spritzes all over himself like soddin' aftershave."

"That was cardamom? I always thought it was some kind of sandalwood, mentholy stuff."

"Could be. Not like I stand around smellin' him for kicks. Rather just _kick_ him. Buffy…?"

"Hmm?" she asks, perplexed by the sudden seriousness in his voice.

"I… I dunno if you'll think I'm out'a line by sayin' this," he mumbles, almost shyly, "but… you'd be a lot better off without that tosser in your life. He's dangerous, soul or not. Seen him do a whole lot'a things too indecent to repeat to you. He ever admit he bit an' sired a boy after he came over all soul-ish?"

Buffy shakes her head, turning a bit pale and wrapping her arms around her churning stomach again – now grumbling from overcapacity, not emptiness.

"Yeah. Did it 'round World War Two. I saw him. Two of us got thrown together in a stolen Nazi submarine, an' the sub was goin' down unless he turned the army boy, Sam, who was the only bloke left alive who could fix it. So Angel sired 'im 'stead of lettin' the poor lad die from his wounds, all because some U.S. admiral bigwig had made him promise to fetch the U-boat. Just… just thought you should know 'bout that, luv. Should know he's not as good an' harmless as he claims."

"Is this really the best time?" she grumbles, not wanting to admit how very right he is. The more she ponders his words, though, the more she realizes how frightened she's often felt since Christmas – remembering the dreams they'd shared, the lust Angel had admitted to.

"Sorry, pet. Just wanted you on the level an' all. Wondered if feelin' ill like you are now has made you wonder how much of a danger he really is to you."

"Stop being so… insightful."

Spike shrugs. "Well, that last bit I actually sort of overheard at the mansion, you tellin' the Great Ponce to sod off and keep his paws to himself. Good on you for that, luv."

"You were there?" she squints. _He knows I left Angel? He knew… this whole time he knew Angel wouldn't be coming to rescue me? That I've been utterly in his hands and he's done nothing to harm me? What kind of a vampire _is_ Spike?_

"Uh..." he backtracks, wondering if he should have kept his gob shut, but the amazed look in her eyes emboldens him. "Yeah, I s'pose the cat's out of the bag now. I dropped by Captain Forehead's place to tell 'im to stay clear of you, before I knew much of anythin' about your weak state. Just a vague rumor floatin' around Willy's place."

"_Great_. Now all the Hellmouth undergobins know I'm…"

Buffy snaps her mouth shut, her jaw trembling more severely again.

"Buffy? What'sa matter?" he asks gently, turning back to face her and running his knuckles against her arm. "Cold? Sick rumblings in your belly?"

"Sick," she nods. "And… I k-kinda have to pee."

"Uh… right…" He hops up from the bed and shrugs into his duster. "There's an abandoned dry-cleaners next door, pro'ly have a loo. Would… would you like me to carry you?"

"I th-think I'm okay. Is this whole part of town abandoned?"

"Yeah, reckon it had somethin' to do with the Aurelius lot settin' up shop here for months. Nibbled away all the neighbors. Here, sweets, watch your step."

Securing her hand in his, Buffy follows Spike up the stairs to the gaping maw in the floor, and he lifts her across the gap, pouncing up himself once she's safely at the door. He leads the way through the main floor of the inactive factory, his duster held over his head to shield him from beams of sunlight crisscrossing the room. They exit through a side-door into a narrow alley and dash to the adjacent building, Spike shouldering his way through the door without hesitation.

"Windows aren't boarded up. Might mean nobody knows the owners have snuffed it, so the water's pro'ly still runnin'. Okay, luv… toilet room looks to be down that hall," he gestures, patting himself down to smoother any sparks. "I'll wait here, then?"

She nods and whimpers at the same time, running at the closed bathroom door as though seeking sanctuary. Spike watches it slam behind her, stressfully rakes both hands through his hair, and flops down in one of the uncomfortably plastic chairs of the dry-cleaner's lobby.

In a quarter of an hour – when Spike's on-edge enough to consider stomping down to the door and banging on it to demand if she's okay – the toilet flushes and Buffy emerges, pasty-faced. She shuffles down the hall without looking at him and sits silently in a seat a couple feet away.

"Buffy?"

"I threw up," she mumbles ashamedly.

"Not pregnant, are you, Slayer?" Spike teases, remembering the old woman at the gas station and her hasty assumptions.

Buffy glowers at him through damp eyes, her mouth quivering as though barely holding in sobs.

"Hey… hey, none of that," he whispers, all joking gone. He stands, crosses over to her, and squats in front of her chair, rubbing her shoulder tenderly. "Just tuggin' your leg is all. Sorry for being a prat."

"I h-hate being sick," she snivels, latching both hands on the crook of his arm as he helps her rise to her feet.

"I know you do, luv… but there might be an up-side. Your system's tryin' to flush out the toxin on its own. Let's nip down back to our hidey-hole, an' you can have yourself s'more water, maybe just the cracker bits out'a the other Lunchables pack. Then, come nightfall, I'll take you back home to Mum, a'right?"

"Mmhmm."

Still sniffling, Buffy remains close to his side as they zip across the alleyway and back into the factory. At the stairs, he lifts her without asking, supporting her tiny form in his arms and hurdling the gap easily.

"You're burnin' up, sweetheart," Spike croons, settling her back on the bed. He brushes his thumb over her forehead and notices the hints of tears clinging to her eyelashes. "Want some of that ice now? I could crunch it up in my red shirt, make it like a compress?"

"Mmhmm," she nods again.

Before either of them really realize what he's doing, Spike leans forward and presses a tiny kiss between her eyebrows. She gasps almost indistinctly at the coolness of his lips, just as soft as she'd speculated.

Clearing his throat awkwardly, Spike removes his hands and lips from the surprised Slayer and fumbles with the grocery bag.

_Nice job you bumblin' git… still gotta find ways to distract her… poor thing's gonna work herself into a frenzy from worry_… _can't tell her yet that it's possible all this is the fault of her Watcher. Know he's like a father to her… betrayal like that, an' on her birthday to boot, would hurt her too much, maybe break her will to fight._

"So, cutie," he smiles, handing her another water bottle and crushing up some of the ice into smaller bits, "tell me all the fun that's been had in Sunnyhell since I've been off eatin' three-toed sloths and other rubbish."

* * *

_Author's note: "These reviews… I like them. Another!_" _Please? :) Next chapter will feature some panicked Scoobies POV. I thought I'd get to it here, but things stretched out._


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